LIBRARY 

University  of 

California 

Irvine 


3 

a 

7T 


MAINE  DE  BIRAN. 

From  Levy-Bruhl's  History  of  Modern  Philosophy  in  France.— Courtesy  of  the  Open  Court 
Publishing  Company. 


THE  UNIVERSITY  LIBRARY 
UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA,  IRVINE 

CORNELL   STUDIES   IN  PHILOSOPHY 
No.  5 


MAINE  DE  BIRAN'S 


PHILOSOPHY  OF  WILL 


BY 

NATHAN    E.   TRUMAN,   A.M.,    PH.D. 

FORMERLY    FELLOW    IN    THE    SAGE   SCHOOL   OF    PHILOSOPHY 


Kite  ¥ork 
THE   MACMILLAN   COMPANY 

LONDON:   MACMILLAN  &  CO.,  LTD. 
1904 


PREFACE. 

No  special  account  of  Maine  de  Biran's  philosophy  has  before 
appeared  in  English,  and  the  sources  are  rendered  somewhat  dif- 
ficult by  the  author's  highly  involved  style.  It  has  seemed,  there- 
fore, that  a  somewhat  extended  exposition  of  his  work  may  prove 
useful.  In  the  composition  of  this  monograph  my  object  has  been 
two-fold  :  to  give  a  statement  of  Biran's  system,  and  to  show  his 
exact  position  in  the  history  of  speculative  thought.  As  a  result 
of  careful  investigation,  I  have  found  it  necessary  to  call  attention 
to  the  unitary  character  of  the  system,  which,  as  a  matter  of  fact, 
centers  around  the  single  idea  —  will.  This  conclusion  is,  of 
course,  opposed  to  the  view  of  Naville,  who  in  his  introduction 
to  the  (Euvres  inedites  divides  Biran's  work  into  three  sharply 
distinguished  periods.  I  am  convinced,  however,  that  this  divi- 
sion rests  on  insufficient  grounds.  For  in  the  idea  of  activity  is 
to  be  found  the  keynote  of  the  entire  philosophy.  This  idea  is 
clearly  evident  in  the  writings  assigned  by  Naville  to  the  earlier 
and  the  later  periods,  as  well  as  in  the  more  important  works  that 
were  written  during  the  intervening  years. 

On  the  whole,  it  may  seem  surprising  that  I  have  not  emphasized 
more  strongly  the  importance  of  Biran's  philosophy.  It  is  per- 
haps unusual  in  a  work  of  this  kind  to  minimize  the  significance 
of  the  subject.  However  that  may  be,  I  have  to  confess  that  the 
motive  which  led  me  to  begin  my  study,  the  expectation  of  find- 
ing elements  of  permanent  value  in  Biran's  philosophy  based  on 
frequent  references  to  him  as  '  the  French  Kant,'  has  scarcely 
been  realized  by  my  subsequent  investigation.  Even  with  the 
most  sympathetic  interpretation,  Biran  cannot  be  placed  among 
philosophers  of  the  first  rank.  Kant's  great  significance  does 
not  consist  merely  in  his  emphasis  on  the  activity  of  mind  against 
the  empiricists,  but  rather  in  the  fact  that  he  shows  that  the 
activity  in  which  the  nature  of  mind  is  expressed  is  universal  and 
objective  in  character.  Biran,  however,  remains  at  the  point  of 

iii 


IV 

view  of  empiricism  ;  for  his  epistemology  is  developed  from  the  sub- 
jective psychological  fact  of  will,  and  continues  relative  to  the  end. 
The  universal  and  necessary  character  of  causality  is  left  unex- 
plained. His  psychology  aims  at  being  introspective  and  factual, 
but  is  lost  in  a  bewildering  mass  of  abstractions.  *  I  have  shown 
that  he  stands  for  a  position  which  is  neither  a  third  view  correla- 
tive with  empiricism  and  rationalism  nor  a  synthesis  of  these  two 
recognized  systems,  but  rather  an  extension  of  the  former  —  a 
development  of  the  Locke-Condillac  school,  yet  a  development 
that  is  still  on  the  same  epistemological  plane. 

Finally  it  should  be  noted  that  my  conclusions  in  regard  to 
Biran's  relation  to  subsequent  philosophical  positions  refer  exclu- 
sively to  the  logical  connection  of  his  ideas,  and  not  to  his  indirect 
influence,  which  was  certainly  very  great,  but  which  I  have  made 
no  attempt  to  estimate.  With  this  reservation,  my  results  indicate 
that  his  effect  on  later  thought,  e.  g.,  on  that  of  Cousin  or  of 
Renouvier,  was  not  extensive. 

In  working  out  this  subject  I  have  received  most  valuable  ad- 
vice and  suggestions  from  Professor  J.  E.  Creighton,  under  whom 
I  had  been  studying  during  the  time  devoted  to  the  composition 
of  the  monograph,  and  from  Professor  Ernest  Albee,  who  very 
kindly  read  my  manuscript  at  an  early  stage. 

N.  E.  T. 
BAINBRIDGE,  N.  Y. 


CONTENTS. 


SECTION  PAGE. 

I.  LIFE  AND  WORKS I 

II.  OBJECTIONS  TO    NAVILLE'S  VIEW   OF   BIRAN'S   DE- 
VELOPMENT    3 

III.  BIRAN'S  RELATION  TO  EARLIER  THINKERS  :  LOCKE, 

CONDILLAC,  KANT,  AND  REID 6 

IV.  PSYCHOLOGICAL  BASIS  OF  BIRAN'S  PHILOSOPHY 22 

V.  DEDUCTION  OF  THE  CATEGORIES 30 

VI.  DIVISIONS  OF  THE  PSYCHOLOGY 41 

VII.  AFFECTIVE  SYSTEM 44 

VIII.  SENSITIVE  SYSTEM 47 

IX.   PERCEPTIVE  SYSTEM 51 

X.  REFLECTIVE  SYSTEM 59 

XI.  COMPARISON  OF  BIRAN'S  Psychologic  WITH   CONDIL- 

LAC'S  Traite  des  sensations 69 

XII.  ETHICS  AND  ^ESTHETICS 72 

XIII.  RELIGION 78 

XIV.  BIRAN'S  RELATION  TO  SUBSEQUENT  THINKERS  :  COUSIN, 

COMTE,  RENOUVIER,  AND  FOUILLEE 81 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 91 

INDEX 93 


SECTION    I. 

LIFE  AND  WORKS. 

Maine  de  Biran  was  regarded  by  Cousin  as  "  the  first  French 
metaphysician  of  our  time."  l  Two  reasons  are  sufficient  to  ex- 
plain why  this  estimate  was  not  made  earlier  or  more  generally 
accepted.  Biran  was  not,  like  his  great  contemporary  Kant,  a 
teacher  of  philosophy.  His  career,  as  far  as  it  was  public,  was 
almost  entirely  in  the  field  of  politics.  To  the  men  of  his  time 
he  was  better  known  as  a  statesman  than  as  a  philosopher.  But 
the  most  important  cause  which  contributed  to  his  failure  to  gain 
early  recognition  was  the  fact  that  he  published  very  little  work. 
He  was  never  quite  satisfied  with  the  form  in  which  he  had  ex- 
pressed his  thought.  The  result  was  that  his  principal  writings 
were  left  unfinished.  Adequate  material  for  estimating  the  value 
of  his  system  was  provided  only  by  posthumous  editions  of  his 
works. 

The  life  of  Biran  was  uneventful.  He  was  born  November 
29,  1766,  and  died  July  20,  1824.  His  father  was  a  physician 
of  the  town  of  Bergerac,  in  the  southwestern  part  of  France. 
He  was  educated  in  the  neighboring  town  of  Perigueux,  where 
he  studied  Condillac's  philosophy  under  the  direction  of  the 
doctrinaires.  In  1785  he  became  a  life-guardsman,  but  early  in 
October  of  that  year  was  wounded  in  the  arm.  He  then  went 
to  Grateloup  and  remained  there  during  the  Reign  of  Terror. 
Subsequently  he  held  several  administrative  offices  in  the  prov- 
ince of  Dordogne.  But  in  1 809  he  was  chosen  a  member  of  the 
legislative  assembly ;  and  after  1812  he  established  his  residence 
permanently  at  Paris.  He  was  a  member  of  the  commission 
which  took  advantage  of  the  reverse  that  Napoleon  had  sus- 
tained in  Russia  to  demand  guarantees  of  the  peace  of  Europe 
and  the  liberties  of  the  French  citizens.  After  the  Restoration, 
Biran  was  a  member  of  the  Chamber  of  Deputies  until  his  death, 

1  Maine  de  Biran,  (Ettvres  Philosophiques,  Vol.  I,  p.  xi. 
I 


2  MAINE    DE    BIRAN  S    PHILOSOPHY 

except  in  the  single  session  1817.  He  voted  at  first  with  the 
liberals,  but  afterwards  with  their  opponents.  The  change  was 
due  not  to  inconsistency,  but  to  a  desire  to  support  the  royal 
power  which  was  in  his  opinion  the  only  safeguard  against 
anarchy  or  despotism. 

Biran's  first  philosophical  work  was  the  Influence  de  T  habitude, 
which,  in  1802,  won  for  him  the  prize  offered  by  the  Institute  of 
France.  Three  years  later  he  received  another  prize  from  the 
same  source,  for  his  Decomposition  de  la  pensec.  In  1 807  he  re- 
ceived special  mention  by  the  Berlin  Academy  for  his  Memoire 
sur  r  aperception  interne  immediate.  Finally,  in  181 1,  he  received 
the  prize  from  the  academy  of  Copenhagen  for  his  Memoire  sur 
les  rapports  du  physique  ct  du  moral  de  I  'hommc.  The  first  essay, 
together  with  an  anonymous  Examen  des  legons  de  pJiilosophie  de 
Laromiguiere  in  1817,  and  Une  exposition  de  la  doctrine  de  Leib- 
nitz in  1819,'  were  the  principal  works  which  he  gave  to  the 
public  during  his  life.  But  to  appreciate  the  system  as  a  whole, 
the  Essai  sur  les  fondcments  de  la  psychologie  and  the  Nouveaux 
essais  d' antliropologie ,  which  were  first  edited  by  E.  Naville  in 
1859,  are  indispensable.  The  first  may  be  called  Biran's  master- 
piece. This  work,  which  was  begun  in  1 8 1 1 ,  was  incomplete 
when  Biran  went  to  Paris  and  was  developed  at  his  leisure  during 
several  succeeding  years.  In  the  Introduction,  the  author  says 
he  intended  to  unite  the  three  prize  essays  into  a  work  more  sys- 
tematic and  more  carefully  elaborated  than  the  writings  which  he 
had  presented  to  the  various  societies.  He  was  led  to  adopt  this 
plan  from  the  fact  that  the  three  essays  were  the  same  in  idea,  dif- 
fering only  in  the  degree  of  development  and  in  the  form  in  which 
the  idea  was  expressed.2  The  Nouveaux  essais  d' antJiropologie 
(1823-24)  is  a  fragment ;  but  is  very  important,  since  it  embodies 
the  final  expression  of  the  author's  philosophy  of  religion.  This 
work  reproduces  many  of  the  ideas  in  the  Psychologie,  and  thus 
clearly  shows  the  internal  connection  in  all  Biran's  philosophy. 

1  In  the  Biographie  Universelle,Vo\.  23. 

2  Cf.  CEuvres  inedites,  publiees  par  Naville,  Vol.  I,  pp.  34-35. 


SECTION  II. 

OBJECTIONS  TO  NAVILLE'S  VIEW  OF  BIRAN'S  DEVELOPMENT. 
At  the  outset  it  should  be  said  that  under  the  title,  "  Philo- 
sophy of  Will,"  I  do  not  limit  myself  either  to  the  period  or 
to  the  characteristics  of  Maine  de  Biran's  work,  which  that  name 
might  suggest  to  one  who  was  familiar  with  Naville's  exposition. 
In  the  Nouveaux  essais  there  is  a  classification  of  the  observed 
facts  of  human  nature,  which  Naville  takes  as  a  key  to  three  suc- 
cessive stages  in  the  thought  of  the  philosopher.  Biran  finds  an 
animal  life  that  is  characterized  by  impressions,  appetites,  and 
movements,  of  physiological  origin,  and  subject  to  the  law  of. 
necessity  ;  a  human  life  resulting  from  the  appearance  of  free  will 
and  self-consciousness  ;  and  a  life  of  the  spirit  which  begins  when 
the  soul  frees  itself  from  the  rule  of  the  lower  tendencies  and  turns 
to  God,  there  to  find  repose.  On  the  analogy  of  this  classifica- 
tion, which  is  taken  to  indicate  Biran's  development,  Naville  has 
described  the  system  under  three  divisions  :  —  a  stage  (i  794-1 804) 
in  which  Biran  is  influenced  by  the  work  of  Condillac  and  agrees 
with  Cabanis  and  de  Tracy  in  regarding  sense  impressions  as  the 
origin  of  thought;  a  philosophy  of  will  (1804-1818)  when  Biran 
develops  with  all  its  consequences  the  fact  of  the  activity  of 
mind  ;  and  finally  (1818-1824)  a  philosophy  of  religion.1  Favre 
agrees  with  Naville  on  this  point.  "  Maine  de  Biran  passed  from 
the  sensationalism  of  Condillac  to  a  doctrine  based  on  the  self, 
and  finally  reached  a  third  phase  in  which  he  gave  the  self  a  sup- 
port :  God."  2  Although  Naville  does  not  regard  these  divisions 
as  absolute,  since  he  recognizes  that  the  first  period  contained  in 
germ  the  principles  which  became  explicit  in  the  second  period, 
and  that  early  in  the  development  of  the  philosophy  of  will  there 
were  tendencies  apparent  which  indicated  the  mystical  character 
of  Biran's  later  thought ;  yet  so  much  importance  is  attached  to 
the  distinctions  that  they  determine  the  form  of  the  exposition. 

1  Op.  cit.,  I,  pp.  v-viii. 

2  Essai  sur  la  metaphysique  et  la  morale  de  Maine  de  Biran,  p.  6. 

3 


4  MAINE    DE    BIRAN  S    PHILOSOPHY 

While  admitting  the  practical  'convenience  of  this  division,  I 
think  that  it  conveys  an  erroneous  impression  of  the  relations  of 
the  several  parts  of  Biran's  work.  In  the  principal  essay  of  the 
first  period  (1794—1804),  the  Influence  de  I' habitude,  we  already 
find  the  idea  really  fundamental  to  Biran's  philosophy.  The 
significance  of  the  consciousness  of  effort  and  of  will  is  here 
clearly  stated.  Only  by  a  voluntary  movement  which  meets  a 
resistance,  that  is,  by  an  effort  which  is  a  relation  between  a  sub- 
ject and  a  limit,  do  we  gain  a  basis  for  consciousness  of  self  and 
knowledge  of  the  external  world.  A  single  passage  will  show 
how  far  Biran  was  removed  from  the  philosophy  of  Condillac 
which  Naville  makes  the  dominant  element  in  the  first  period. 

"  Effort  necessarily  carries  with  it  the  perception  of  a  relation 
between  the  being  which  moves,  or  which  wills  to  move,  and 
some  object  which  is  opposed  to  the  movement.  Without  a  sub- 
ject or  a  will  that  determines  the  movement,  and  without  a  term 
which  resists,  there  is  no  effort.  And  without  effort  there  is  no 
knowledge  or  perception  of  any  kind."  * 

In  view  of  this  and  similar  passages,  we  may  regard  the  first 
period  not  so  much  as  a  distinct  stage  in  the  thought  of  the  phil- 
osopher as  an  incomplete  expression  of  the  one  idea  of  conscious 
activity  which  came  to  clear  light  in  the  second  period.  The 
doctrines  which  Naville  takes  as  characteristic  of  the  first  stage 
were  not  the  results  of  Biran's  own  thought,  but  rather  the  in- 
heritance which  he  received  from  the  school  of  Condillac.  They 
were  the  subject  matter,  not  the  product,  of  his  early  philosophi- 
cal activity. 

Merten  notes  the  fact  that  the  notion  of  effort  appears  in  the 
first  pages  of  the  essay  on  habit ;  but  he  says  :  "  It  is  easy  to  see 
that  it  is  only  a  question  here  of  effort  conceived  as  the  correla- 
tive term  of  the  impression."  2  But  if  "  impression  "  is  taken  to 
mean  an  effect  produced  on  the  organism  by  something  entirely 
external  and  foreign  to  the  organism,  we  find  that  effort  is  not 
always  correlated  with  impression  even  in  the  essay  on  habit. 
For  example,  Biran  says  :  "  We  cannot  doubt  that  the  educa- 

1  (Euvres philosophiques,  Vol.  I,  p.  27. 

2  Etude  critique  sur  Maine  de  Biran,  p.  9. 


OBJECTIONS    TO    NAVILLE's    VIEW  5 

tion  of  what  are  usually  considered  merely  as  the  sense  organs 
begins  only  by  the  development  of  their  individual  or  associated 
activity."1  It  will  be  noticed  that  Biran  says  'education,'  not 
'  existence '  :  the  organism  is  here  regarded  as  susceptible  to  im- 
pression prior  to  any  experience  of  effort.  If,  on  the  other  hand, 
by  impression  is  meant  the  consciousness  that  the  will  meets  a 
resistance,  effort  is  correlated  with  impression  not  only  in  Biran's 
earlier,  but  also  in  his  later,  work.  Similarly,  the  distinction  of 
the  third  from  the  second  period  is  due  to  a  change  in  the  sphere 
of  application,  rather  than  in  the  essential  character  of  the  prin- 
ciple. In  the  philosophy  of  will  the  principle  is  applied  to  the 
individual.  In  the  philosophy  of  religion  as  far  as  it  is  a  self-con- 
sistent system,  the  principle  of  conscious  activity  is  considered 
also  in  extra-individual  relations.  At  the  beginning,  Biran  was 
exclusively  interested  in  a  psychological  account  of  mind,  and 
only  at  a  later  date  did  he  take  up  the  questions  concerning 
man's  wider  relations  to  society  and  the  world.2  Even  at  this 
later  period  these  more  fundamental  problems  never  received 
adequate  treatment.  But  this  point  will  be  worked  out  in  more 
detail  after  we  have  given  a  general  statement  of  his  system. 

Accordingly,  in  the  treatment  of  Biran's  philosophy  of  will,  we 
shall  not  limit  the  consideration  to  the  period  indicated  by  Naville's 
division  (1804-1818),  but  shall  devote  some  attention  to  the 
earlier  writings  and  also  to  the  later  development  of  the  philos- 
ophy. It  will,  of  course,  remain  true,  however,  that  our  study 
will  have  an  especial  reference  to  the  second  period,  since  it  is 
here  that  Biran's  ideas  are  most  clearly  stated,  and  that  his  views 
have  most  significance  for  the  history  of  philosophy.  This  is  the 
period  of  his  most  systematic  and  extended  work,  the  Essai  sur 
les  fondements  de  la  psychologic. 

1  CEuvres  philosophiques,  I,  p.  99. 

2  Gabriel  Tarde  has  recently  pointed  to  this  individualistic  feature.     Maine  de  Biran 
found  that  the  "  experiences  of  touch,  sight,  and  hearing,  in  which  it  (the  child  i  felt 
itself  at  once  subject  and  object,  stood  out  in  high  relief  from  the  ordinary  impressions 
of  touch  acting  upon  foreign  substances,  and  from  the  usual  impressions  of  sight  and 
hearing.  .   .  .   But  what  Maine  de  Biran  did  not  see  is  this  :  That  stranger  still  and 
standing  out  yet  more  sharply  on  the  background  of  our  external  perceptions,  is  our 
perceptions  of  other  people."      Interpsychology.    International  Quarterly, Vol.  VII, 
No.  I,  p.  62. 


SECTION    III. 

BIRAN'S  RELATION  TO  EARLIER  THINKERS  :  LOCKE,  CONDILLAC, 
KANT,  AND  REID. 

Before  considering  Maine  de  Biran's  philosophy  in  detail,  it  is 
well  briefly  to  review  the  work  of  his  direct  predecessors  in 
reference  to  the  special  points  in  which  their  opinions  are  related 
to  the  principle  which  he  makes  ultimate.  This  reference  will 
show  the  nature  of  the  philosophical  thought  which  was  domi- 
nant in  France  in  his  time,  and  also  the  specific  manner  in 
which  he  reacted  against  the  current  sensationalism ;  it  will 
enable  us  to  estimate  his  position  at  the  beginning  of  his  career, 
and  also  to  determine  the  extent  of  his  development.  Comparison 
with  the  historical  environment  will  lend  distinctness  to  his  lead- 
ing ideas  and  will  make  it  possible  to  determine  more  exactly  the 
significance  of  their  application  in  his  system.  With  this  end  in 
view  we  shall  attempt  to  trace  the  idea  of  the  activity  of  the  self 
as  it  is  found  in  the  work  of  Locke  and  of  Condillac.  But  in 
this  connection  the  treatment  can  be  no  more  than  a  mere  outline  ; 
and  naturally  cannot  include  even  the  mention  of  many  impor- 
tant elements  in  the  views  of  these  philosophers. 

At  this  point  we  may  notice  a  definition  of  sensationalism. 1 
Cousin,  who  found  it  congenial  and  advantageous 2  to  call  himself 
a  disciple  of  Biran,  brought  the  name  into  use.  With  him  the 
term  designated  the  least  developed  of  the  four  common  philo- 
sophical positions.  The  three  types  of  thought  correlative  with 
it  were  idealism,  skepticism,  and  mysticism.3  He  employed  it  to 
characterize  the  school  of  Condillac.  But  in  a  wider  sense  it  has 
been  applied  to  various  thinkers,  sometimes  to  denote  a  material- 
istic metaphysics,  at  other  times  an  empirical  epistemology,  or 
finally  a  hedonistic  ethics.  Especially  in  the  second  of  these 
senses  the  term  was  applied  to  the  views  of  Condillac  and  in  a 

1  Cf.  Beaulavon's  definition  in  La  grande  encyclopedic. 

2  Picavet,  article  Biran  in  ibid. 

*Cf.  Cousin's  History  of  Modern  Philosophy  (translated  by  O.  W.  Wight),  Vol. 
II,  Lecture  IV. 

6 


BIRAN'S  RELATION  TO  EARLIER  THINKERS  7 

lesser  degree  to  those  of  Locke.     The  epistemological  aspect  of 
these  systems  is  important  in  relation  to  Biran. 

Locke  could  accept  without  hesitation  the  empirical  dictum, 
Nihil  est  in  intellectu  quod  non  prius  fuerit  iu  sensu.  But  a  care- 
ful consideration  of  his  account  of  experience  reveals  the  pres- 
ence of  self-activity  in  his  theory  of  knowledge.  All  the  materi- 
als of  knowledge  and  reason  come  from  experience.  This 
experience,  however,  includes  the  observation  not  only  of  "  ex- 
ternal sensible  objects"  but  of  the  "internal  operations  of  our 
minds."  *  This  "perception  of  the  operations  of  our  own  mind 
within  us,"  the  second  "  fountain  from  which  experience  furnish- 
eth  the  understanding  with  ideas,"  is  named  specifically  Reflection, 
and  "  though  it  is  not  sense  as  having  nothing  to  do  with  external 
objects,  yet  it  is  very  like  it  (sense)  and  might  properly  enough 
be  called  internal  sense."  2  It  is  evident  that,  for  Locke,  the 
material  derived  from  reflection  has  at  least  equal  value  with  the 
products  of  sensation.  The  mind  "  observes  its  own  actions  .  .  . 
and  takes  from  thence  other  ideas  which  are  as  capable  to  be  the 
objects  of  its  contemplation  as  any  of  those  it  received  from  foreign 
things."  From  reflection  we  derive  the  idea  of  perception  and 
of  will.  "The  power  of  thinking  is  called  the  understanding, 
and  the  power  of  volition  is  called  the  will." 3  Besides  these 
simple  ideas  and  their  various  modes  there  are  other  ideas  that 
may  be  derived  from  reflection,  e.  g.,  power.  We  observe  "  in 
ourselves  that  we  can  at  pleasure  move  several  parts  of  our  bodies 
that  were  at  rest."  *  Power  is  classified  as  active  and  passive. 
While  ideas  of  both  active  and  passive  power  are  derived  from 
our  experience  of  the  external  world,  "  our  senses  do  not  afford 
us  so  clear  and  distinct  an  idea  of  active  power,  as  we  have  from 
reflection  on  the  operations  of  our  minds."  5 

In  comparing  Locke  with  Biran,  it  is  very  important  to  notice 
his  conception  of  will.  In  the  chapter  on  power,  he  makes  will 
and  understanding  examples  of  power.  In  regard  to  the  first  he 

1£ssay  Concerning  Human  Understanding,  II,  Ch.  I,  §  2. 
*Ibid.,  II,  Ch.  I,  §4. 
*Ibid.,  II,  Ch.  VI. 
*Ibid.,  II,  Ch.  VII,  §8. 
5 Ibid.,  II,  Ch.  XXI,  §4. 


8  MAINE  DE  BIRAN'S  PHILOSOPHY 

says  :  "  We  find  in  ourselves  a  power  to  begin  or  to  forbear,  con- 
tinue or  end  several  actions  of  our  minds  and  motions  of  our 
bodies,  barely  by  a  thought  or  preference  of  the  mind  ordering, 
or,  as  it  were,  commanding  the  doing  or  not  doing  such  or  such 
a  particular  action.  This  power  which  the  mind  has  thus  to 
order  the  consideration  of  any  idea,  or  ...  the  motion  of  any 
part  of  the  body  ...  in  any  particular  instance  is  what  we  call 
will."  l  These  powers  of  mind,  which  are  sometimes  called 
faculties,  should  not  be  supposed  "  to  stand  for  some  real  beings 
in  the  soul  that  performed  those  actions."  2  The  nature  of  the 
will  is  also  evident  from  the  treatment  of  the  question  of  freedom. 
The  agent  is  at  liberty  to  follow  the  preference  of  his  mind  ;  but 
to  ask  if  the  will  has  freedom  is  to  ask  if  one  power  has  another 
power."  3  Volition  "  is  an  act  of  the  mind  directing  its  thought 
to  the  production  of  any  action,  and  thereby  exerting  its  power  to 
produce  it,"  4  while  "freedom  consists  in  the  dependence  of  the 
existence  .  .  .  of  any  action  upon  our  volition  of  it."  5 

The  secondary  place  which  the  will  holds  in  Locke's  scheme  is 
further  shown  by  a  consideration  of  his  view  of  spirit.  Finite 
spirit  is  one  of  the  three  varieties  of  substance,  yet  in  the  mental 
operations  of  thinking,  reasoning,  fearing,  etc.,  which  we  refer  to 
a  spiritual  substrate  "  we  have  as  clear  a  notion  of  the  substance 
of  spirit  as  we  have  of  body."  In  the  section  on  the  intuitive 
knowledge  of  our  own  existence,  Locke  is  so  far  from  making 
will  the  core  of  being  that  he  does  not  even  mention  it  as  one  of 
the  forms  of  consciousness  in  which  we  find  direct  and  indisput- 
able evidence  of  existence,  although  he  would  no  doubt  be  will- 
ing to  include  it  as  coordinate  with  the  "  I  think,  I  reason,  I  feel 
pleasure  and  pain  "  and  "  I  doubt."  7  Finally,  it  is  not  the  will 
that  makes  the  self  as  in  Biran.  "  Nothing  but  consciousness  can 
unite  remote  existences  into  the  same  person  :  the  identity  of  sub- 

1  Op.  fit.,  II,  Ch.  XXI,  §  5. 

2  Ibid.,  II,  Ch.  XXI,  §  6. 
*Ibid.,  II,  Ch.  XXI,  §  16. 
*Ibid.,  II,  Ch.  XXI,  §  28. 
5  Ibid.,  II,  Ch.  XXI,  §  27. 
« Ibid.,  II,  Ch.  XXIII,  §  5. 
7  Ibid.,  IV,  Ch.  IX,  §  3. 


BIRAN  S  RELATION  TO  EARLIER  THINKERS  9 

stance  will  not  do  it ;  for  whatever  substance  there  is,  however 
framed,  without  consciousness  there  is  no  person." 

In  the  system  of  Condillac,  there  is  presented  a  form  of  empiri- 
cism which  differs  in  many  respects  from  that  of  Locke  and  which 
is  especially  important  in  the  present  connection.  The  Traite  des 
sensations  appeared  in  1754.  It  is  the  aim  of  the  author  to  show 
that  all  knowledge  is  derived  from  sensation.  By  means  of  sen- 
sations the  soul  is  modified  and  all  its  knowledge  and  faculities 
are  developed.  The  problem  here  is  not  so  much  the  nature  of 
the  mind  as  the  character  and  origin  of  mental  operations.  With 
reference  to  the  philosophy  of  Locke,  Condillac  makes  the  follow- 
ing criticism  :  "  The  greater  part  of  the  judgments  which  are 
united  to  all  sensation  escaped  him  [Locke] .  He  did  not  realize 
that  we  must  learn  to  touch,  to  see,  and  to  hear,  etc.  All  the 
faculties  of  the  soul  appeared  to  him  as  innate  qualities."  2  Reflec- 
tion is  not  a  source  of  ideas  coordinate  with  sensation.  Locke 
did  not  carry  his  analysis  far  enough.  "  The  sensations  after 
having  been  attention,  comparison,  judgment,  finally  become 
reflection."  3  It  is  not  our  purpose  to  trace  the  system  of  trans- 
formed sensations  as  they  are  variously  related  to  the  original 
sensation,  which  Condillac  builds  up  in  describing  the  developing 
consciousness  of  his  statue.  But  with  reference  to  Biran  it  is 
necessary  to  consider,  at  least  very  briefly,  the  place  of  desire  and 
will  in  the  view  of  the  author  of  the  Traite  des  sensations. 

The  sensations  from  the  first  have  an  affective  quality.  While 
the  statue  is  for  itself  nothing  more  than  the  single  sensation  to 
which  it  attends,  that  sensation  is  agreeable  or  disagreeable.  Ex- 
perience is  pleasant  or  unpleasant  even  before  there  is  any  com- 
parison of  experiences.  Pain  cannot  make  the  statue  desire  a 
state  that  it  does  not  know.  The  first  sensation,  however  agree- 
able or  disagreeable  it  is,  cannot  lead  to  desire.4  Only  when  the 
statue  notices  that  it  can  cease  to  be  what  it  is  and  become  what 
it  has  been,  will  desire  arise  from  a  painful  state.5  Desire  is  the 
'<?/.  dt.,  II,  Ch.  xxvn,  §23. 

*  Traite  des  sensations.     Extrait  raisonne,  pp.  6  and  7  (Houel  ed. ). 
3Ibid.1  p.  19. 

«  Cf.  ibid.,  I,  Ch.  II,  §  3. 

*  Cf.  ibid.,  I,  Ch.  II,  §  4. 


IO  MAINE    DE    BIRAN  S    PHILOSOPHY 

activity  of  the  faculties  of  the  soul  when  they  are  directed  upon 
a  thing  of  which  we  feel  the  need.  It  presupposes  the  idea  of 
something  better  than  what  is  at  present  existent,  and  also  a 
judgment  of  the  difference  of  two  successive  states.1 

With  Biran  will  is  absolutely  distinct  from  desire,  with  Condil- 
lac  it  is  a  further  development  of  desire.  The  memory  of  having 
satisfied  some  desires  gives  the  hope  of  being  able  to  satisfy 
others.  Although  the  outcome  is  not  certain,  confidence  in- 
creases in  proportion  as  the  need  is  felt  to  be  great.  The  statue 
then  does  not  limit  itself  to  desiring ;  but  it  wills.  Will  is  "an 
absolute  desire,  that  is,  a  desire  of  such  a  nature  that  we  think 
the  thing  desired  is  in  our  power."2 

Personality  is  not  constituted  by  the  activity  of  the  will  as  in 
Biran,  but  is  dependent  upon  memory.  With  the  first  sensation 
there  is  no  personality  ;  but  with  a  change  of  sensation  the  self 
"judges  that  it  is  the  same  which  has  existed  before,  in  another 
manner,  and  it  says  '  I.'  "  3  This  consciousness  of  self  is  so  far 
from  being  dependent  on  will  that  it  is  even  antecedent  to  desire. 
"  Before  being  able  to  say  '  I  desire '  one  must  be  able  to  say 
'  I.'  "  2  The  sense  of  touch  is  a  unique  form  of  sensation.  It  is 
the  first  in  importance  in  the  animal  life,  -t  Condillac  names  touch 
the  fundamental  feeling.  He  even  identifies  it  with  personality. 
This  feeling  and  the  ego  of  the  statue  are  "  only  one  thing  in 
origin."  4  It  is  by  this  sense  that  the  statue  discovers  its  body 
and  learns  that  there  is  an  external  world.  This  result  is  effected 
by  movement ;  but  contrary  to  Biran' s  theory,  the  movement  by 
which  we  discover  the  non-ego  is  involuntary.  It  is  determined 
by  the  pleasant  or  unpleasant  character  of  sensation ;  but  the 
organism  reacts  without  any  plan.  Prevision  is  unnecessary, 
obedience  to  nature  alone  is  sufficient.  In  consequence  of  the 
organization  of  the  statue,  its  muscles  move  its  limbs  on  the  oc- 
currence of  an  unpleasant  stimulus  "  and  it  moves  without  a  plan 
as  even  without  knowing  that  it  moves."  5 

1  Cf.  Op.  cit.,  I,  Ch.  Ill,  §§  i  and  2. 
*Ibid.,  I,  Ch.  Ill,  §9. 
*Ibid.t  I,  Ch.  VI,  §2. 
«/«</.,  II,  Ch.  I,  §3. 
8  Ibid.,  II,  Ch.  IV,  §2. 


BIRAN  S    RELATION    TO    EARLIER    THINKERS  I  I 

With  the  discovery  of  something  beyond  the  self,  which  is 
brought  about  through  the  sense  of  touch,  the  statue  finds  that 
the  essential  character  of  each  sensation  is  that  it  leads  to  some 
knowledge.  This  reference  beyond  itself  transforms  the  sensa- 
tion into  an  idea.  "  Every  impression  which  conveys  knowledge 
is  an  idea."  l  Knowledge  is  thus  independent  of  volition.  It  is 
the  final  result  of  the  transformation  of  the  sensation.  In  the 
beginning  the  sensation  had  an  affective  attribute,  but  not  voli- 
tional character  ;  and  this  last  step  in  the  development  which 
changes  sensation  to  idea  is  effected  by  the  influence  of  an  exter- 
nal stimulus  upon  a  purely  passive  organism. 

Although  we  cannot  doubt  the  existence  of  body  to  which  we 
must  refer  sensible  qualities,  yet  we  are  quite  cut  off  from  the 
hope  of  any  real  knowledge  of  the  object.  For  "considering  the 
origin  of  ideas  it  is  clear  that  they  present  to  our  statue  nothing 
but  qualities  variously  combined.  The  statue  perceives,  for  ex- 
ample, solidity,  extension,  divisibility,  figure,  and  motion  united 
in  all  that  it  touches  ;  and  it  has  consequently  the  idea  of  body. 
But  to  the  question,  What  is  a  body  ?  it  can  only  answer,  it  is 
there,  that  is  to  say,  you  will  always  find  there,  solidity,  extension, 
divisibility,  and  figure."2  The  words  being  and  substance  are 
devoid  of  positive  significance.  Our  knowledge  is  sufficient  for 
our  needs.  An  intuitive  knowledge  of  the  reality  of  the  self, 
which  Locke  finds  by  reflecting  on  the  operations  of  the  mind, 
and  which  Biran  finds  in  the  consciousness  of  effort,  is  unneces- 
sary in  the  system  of  Condillac. 

The  important  characteristic  of  the  system,  for  us,  is  the  fact 
that  in  this  account  of  origins,  Condillac  does  not  make  the  will 
fundamental.  The  will  together  with  memory,  comparison,  re- 
flection, etc.,  is  derived  from  an  original,  affectively  qualified  sen- 
sation. Knowledge  of  the  not-self  does  not  depend  upon  will, 
but  thg  reverse  is  rather  true,  since  will  is  a  form  of  desire,  and 
desire  implies  knowledge  of  the  not-self.  This  difference  in  the 
treatment  of  will  is  the  essential  distinction  between  Condillac 
and  Biran.  We  shall  see  later  that  there  is  a  striking  similarity 

i  Op.  cif.,  II,  Ch.  VIII,  §28. 
2/<W.,  IV,  Ch.  VI,  §9. 


12  MAINE    DE    BIRAN  S    PHILOSOPHY 

between  their  forms  of  exposition  and  also  in  their  explanations 
of  important  points. 

From  Condillac  we  proceed  to  consider  briefly  the  form  of 
contemporary  empiricism,  with  which  our  philosopher  was  most 
closely  connected.  Maine  de  Biran's  first  important  work  was  a 
study  of  the  influence  of  habit  on  the  various  modes  of  conscious 
activity.  Destutt  de  Tracy  was  chairman  of  the  committee  which 
awarded  the  prize  to  this  essay.  He  was  also  the  leading  repre- 
sentative of  the  idealogists.  In  1796  he  had  invented  this  name 
to  mark  out  what  he  and  his  friends  believed  to  be  the  proper 
line  of  philosophical  activity.  Metaphysics  was  discredited,  in 
their  opinion,  because  it  applied  to  researches  on  the  nature  of 
being  and  in  regard  to  the  origin  and  first  cause  of  things,  which 
they  held  to  be  useless.  Psychology  meant  the  science  of  the 
soul  and  also  referred  to  first  causes.  Idealogy,  on  the  contrary, 
treated  questions  of  origin  as  unanswerable.  Whether  we  study 
within  or  without  ourselves  all  we  can  hope  to  accomplish  is  to 
acquire  a  deeper  knowledge  of  the  laws  of  nature.  Idealogy 
adopted  purely  scientific  methods  of  research.  It  aimed  to  be 
the  basis  of  grammar,  logic,  ethics,  pedagogy,  and  social  science. 
By  exclusive  attention  to  the  empirical  study  of  mind,  de  Tracy 
hoped  to  develop  a  system  which  should  be  more  firmly  estab- 
lished and  more  fruitful  in  results  than  the  pre-revolutionary  phi- 
losophy had  been.  Next  to  Destutt  de  Tracy  the  most  important 
of  the  idealogists  was  an  intimate  friend  of  Biran,  named  Cabanis, 
who  was  especially  distinguished  for  his  physiological  researches. 

In  the  essay  on  habit,  Maine  de  Biran  begins  with  this  essenti- 
ally epistemological  view.  How  closely  he  is  allied  to  the 
idealogists  in  method  and  purpose,  can  be  seen  from  his  own 
statement  of  his  position  in  the  introduction.  "  In  all  that  is  to 
follow,  I  have  no  other  intention  than  to  investigate  and  analyze 
effects  as  we  can  know  them,  either  by  reflecting  on  what  we 
experience  in  the  exercise  of  our  senses  and  different  faculties,  or 
by  studying  the  conditions  or  the  play  of  the  organs  on  which 
this  exercise  depends.  I  have  tried  to  unite,  in  certain  respects  at 
least,  idealogy  and  physiology."  l  Again  he  says  :  "We  know 

1  (Ei<vres  philosophiques,  Vol.  I,  p.  1 6. 


BIRAN'S  RELATION  TO  EARLIER  THINKERS  13 

nothing  of  the  nature  of  forces.  They  are  manifest  to  us  only 
by  their  effects.  The  human  mind  observes  these  effects,  traces 
their  analogies,  and  calculates  their  relations  when  they  are  sus- 
ceptible of  measure ;  this  is  the  limit  of  its  power."  l 

In  order  to  determine  the  influence  of  habit,  Maine  de  Biran 
finds  it  necessary  to  state  his  general  view  of  the  faculties  and 
operations  of  the  understanding.  This  is  fortunate,  as  it  gives 
data  by  which  we  can  make  out  the  relation  of  his  early  position 
to  that  of  Locke  and  of  Condillac.  With  the  earlier  philosophers 
Biran  believes  that  the  intellectual  faculties  derive  everything 
from  sensation,  or  by  receiving  impressions.2  "The  faculty  of 
receiving  impressions  is  the  first  and  most  general  of  all  that 
occur  in  the  living  organism."  3  The  impression  is  the  result  of 
the  action  of  an  object  on  an  animate  being.  The  object,  whether 
internal  or  external,  is  the  cause  of  the  impression.  Impression 
has  the  same  value  as  sensation  in  the  ordinary  acceptation  of 
that  term.  The  impression  varies  for  consciousness  according  to 
which  of  the  particular  sense  organs  mediates  the  modification. 
And  in  this  respect  the  organism  is  a  constituent  factor  in  all 
sensations. 

There  are,  however,  certain  further  operations  of  thought  which 
cannot  be  explained  by  a  comparison  of  the  products  of  the  vari- 
ous sense  organs.  This  fact  leads  Biran  to  postulate  a  further 
principle  of  classification,  according  to  which  impressions  are 
either  active  or  passive.  When  we  perceive  a  modification  of 
any  particular  kind  in  consciousness  and  have  no  power  over  the 
modification,  the  impression  is  passive.  Even  in  this  case  the 
experience  is  not  a  mechanical  result  of  the  stimulus.  The  sense 
organ  by  its  specific  activity  determines  the  character  of  the  sen- 
sation. The  activity  occurs  within  the  self,  but  without  the 
direction  of  the  self.  In  the  case  of  voluntary  movement,  we 
have  a  totally  different  kind  of  experience.  In  moving  the  arm, 
for  example,  after  we  abstract  from  every  impression  of  the  sort 
above  described  which  results  from  the  movement,  we  have  left 
an  impression  of  an  entirely  different  nature.  Here  the  self  cre- 

1  Op.  cit.,  Vol.  I,  p.  17. 

2  Cf.  ibid.,  Vol.  I,  pp.  15  and  16. 

id.,  Vol.  I,  p.  1 8. 


14  MAINE  DE  BIRAN'S  PHILOSOPHY 

ates  its  own  modification.  It  can  begin,  leave  off,  or  vary  the 
modification.  And  consciousness  apart  from  the  passive  impres- 
sions gives  an  evidence  of  the  modifications. 

The  nature  of  the  organism  is  such  that  there  is  an  intimate 
connection  between  the  faculty  of  mere  sensation  and  the  faculty 
of  movement.  They  are  constituent  factors  in  almost  all  experi- 
ence. With  few  exceptions  the  impressions  have  a  mixed  char- 
acter ;  they  are  made  up  of  sensitive  and  motor  activity,  and  are 
active  in  one  relation  and  passive  in  another.  The  ratio  of  the 
movement  and  the  feeling  varies.  When  the  feeling  is  very 
prominent  the  individual  ist  not  conscious  of  the  accompanying 
movement  and  the  impression  is  passive.  To  this  form  Biran  ap- 
plies the  name  sensation.  If  the  motor  element  is  prominent,  or 
even  if  it  stands  in  such  a  degree  of  equilibrium  that  it  cannot  be 
eclipsed,  the  individual  is  active  and  can  compare  himself  with 
others.  To  impressions  which  have  these  characteristics  Biran 
gives  the  name  perceptions.  In  each  of  the  sense  organs  there 
is  a  particular  relation  of  the  two  factors.  Classified  in  a  graded 
order  according  to  the  decreasing  prominence  of  the  motor  factor, 
we  have  the  sense  of  touch,  vision,  auditory  sensation  correlated 
with  the  vocal  faculty,  the  sense  of  taste,  and  the  sense  of  smell, 
and  finally  the  impressions  received  from  the  internal  parts  of 
the  body  which  can  be  called  pure  sensations.1 

To  summarise  the  positions  of  Locke,  Condillac,  and  Biran,  we 
may  say  that  each  makes  knowledge  dependent  upon  experience. 
But  Locke  begins  with  a  mind  which  derives  its  experience  from 
the  two-fold  source,  sensation  and  reflection.  And  under  reflec- 
tion are  found  perception  and  will  as  modes  of  activity.  More- 
over, consciousness  is  a  conditiosine  qua  non  of  perception  and  will. 
Condillac  builds  up  perception,  will,  and  consciousness  in  general 
from  the  action  of  a  stimulus  on  a  purely  passive  mind.  Will  is 
dependent  upon  desire,  and  desire  in  turn  is  dependent  upon  the 
affective  attribute  of  sensation.  Perception  of  the  non-ego  is  gained 
through  a  unique  quality  or  the  sense  of  touch.  Biran  discovers 
in  the  original  impressions  or  materials  of  experience  an  active  and 
a  passive  factor.  It  is  the  active,  that  is,  the  volitional  element 

1  Cf,  op.  cif.,  Vol.  I,  pp.  21-25. 


BIRAN'S  RELATION  TO  EARLIER  THINKERS  15 

which  distinguishes  perception  from  mere  sensation  and  which  is 
thus  the  basis  of  consciousness. 

The  development  of  this  idea  of  an  active  empirical  factor  is 
the  characteristic  phase  of  his  system.  He  identifies  the  self 
with  the  feeling  of  effort.  It  is  by  making  this  perceived  self  a 
fact  rather  than  an  idea  that  he  distinguishes  his  system  from  all 
forms  of  rationalism,  which  he  regards  as  based  on  abstract  ideas. 
By  emphasis  on  the  "  inner  "  and  consequently  necessary  charac- 
ter of  this  fact  he  differentiates  his  position  from  that  of  empiri- 
cism. The  categories  of  thought  are  derived  from  the  nature  of 
the  primitive  fact,  and  his  psychology  is  an  account  of  the  rela- 
tion in  which  the  self '  discovered  in  effort  stands  to  the  physio- 
logical system  with  which  it  is  connected. 

In  this  connection  we  may  note  the  relation  in  which  Biran 
stood  to  Kant.  The  direct  debt  of  the  French  to  the  German 
philosopher  was  very  slight.1  The  inaugural  dissertation  of  1770 
was  the  only  one  of  Kant's  works  which  Biran  studied  in  the 
original.2  Biran's  own  estimate  of  the  relation  is  valuable,  espe- 
cially since  he  did  not,  as  was  the  case  in  reference  to  the  system 
of  Condillac,  over-emphasize  the  disparity  between  his  own  posi- 
tion and  that  which  he  criticizes.  He  says  :  "  Kant  occupies  him- 
self with  the  classification  or  with  the  logical  order  of  the  means 
(instruments)  of  knowledge,  rather  than  with  the  real  analysis  of 
the  elements  of  that  knowledge  itself."  The  unitary  subject  and 
the  multiple  object  "  are,  in  his  view,  absolutely  undivided  and  in- 
divisible in  inner  and  outer  experience ;  for  the  object  can  be  con- 
ceived only  under  the  forms  of  space  and  time  which  are  inherent 
in  the  subject  .  .  .  ,  and  the  subject  .  .  .  cannot  be  known, 
originally,  by  itself,  without  the  representation  of  some  object." 
Again,  he  says  :  "The  subject  and  object  are,"  for  Kant,  "only 
two  abstractions,  no  real  or  positive  knowledge  belongs  to  either 
the  one  or  the  other,"  yet  "  all  reality  consists  only  in  the  union 
of  these  two  abstracts  elements."3  The  critical  philosophy  by 

1  The  principal  sources  of  Biran's  knowledge  of  Kant  were,  probably,  Gerando's 
Histoire  compares  des  systemes  (1804)  first  edition,  and  the  second  volume  of  Ancil- 
lon's  Melanges.     Cf.  (Euvres  inedites,  Vol.  I,  p.  1 66. 

2  Kiihtmann,  Maine  de  Biran,  p.  58. 

3  CEuvres  inedites,  Vol.  I,  pp.  167-8. 


1 6  MAINE  DE  BIRAN'S  PHILOSOPHY 

investing  every  sensation  with  space  and  time  which  are  the  in- 
herent forms  of  sensibility,  "  makes  no  distinction  between  the 
different  kinds  of  sensations,  inner  and  outer,  or  the  two  sorts  of 
elements  in  a  single  complete  sensation,"  l  the  representative  and 
the  unrepresentative  elements  which  occur  now  singly  and  now 
together.  It  is  clear  that  for  Biran  the  subject-object  relation  is 
psychological  while  for  Kant  it  is  epistemological. 

We  may  easily  work  out  objections  to  Biran' s  philosophy  from 
the  Kantian  point  of  view.  The  self  as  a  fact  of  immediate  per- 
ception admittedly  contains  an  empirical  factor.  Therefore  any 
deductive  account  of  the  principle  of  knowledge  based  upon  this 
self  must  be  devoid  of  the  character  of  absolute  necessity.  "  If  our 
knowledge  of  thinking  beings  in  general,  so  far  as  it  is  derived 
from  pure  reason,  were  founded  on  more  than  the  cogito,  and  if 
we  made  use  at  the  same  time  of  observations  on  the  play  of  our 
thoughts  and  the  natural  laws  of  the  thinking  self,  derived  from 
them,  we  should  have  before  us  an  empirical  psychology,  which 
would  form  a  kind  of  physiology  of  the  internal  sense,  and  perhaps 
explain  its  manifestations,  but  would  never  help  us  to  understand 
such  properties  as  do  not  fall  under  any  possible  experience  (as, 
for  instance,  simplicity),  or  to  teach  apodictically  anything  touching 
the  nature  of  thinking  beings  in  general."  2  If,  however,  we  pass 
over  this  objection  and  provisionally  admit  the  validity  of  deduc- 
tions from  the  psychological  self,  we  find  the  same  difficulty  in 
Biran' s  system  which  Kant  finds  in  rational  psychology  in  gen- 
eral, that  is,  "  reason  imposes  upon  us  an  apparent  knowledge 
only,  by  representing  the  constant  logical  subject  of  thought  as 
the  knowledge  of  the  real  subject  in  which  that  knowledge 
inheres.  Of  that  subject,  however,  we  have  not  and  cannot  have 
the  slightest  knowledge,  because  consciousness  is  that  which  alone 
changes  representation  into  thoughts,  and  in  which,  therefore,  as 
the  transcendental  subject,  all  our  perceptions  must  be  found. 
Besides  this  logical  meaning  of  the  I,  we  have  no  knowledge  of 
the  subject  in  itself,  which  forms  the  substratum  and  foundation 
of  it  and  of  all  our  thoughts."  3 

1  (Euvres philosophiques,  Vol.  Ill,  p.  240. 

2  Critique  of  Pure  Reason  (trans,  by  Max  Miiller),  p.  283. 
9 Ibid.,  pp.  285-286. 


I 


BIKAN'S  RELATION  TO  EARLIER  THINKERS  17 

Biran  has  been  compared  to  Kant  with  reference  to  the  concept 
of  self-activity.  Let  us  see  now  just  how  much  and  how  little 
real  resemblance  there  is. 

Konig  called  Biran  the  French  Kant.  But  the  compari- 
son is  employed  with  reference  to  the  emphasis  that  each  of  the 
philosophers  gives  to  the  "  spontaneity  of  the  subject."  More- 
over Konig  points  out  the  different  applications  of  the  concept  in 
the  two  cases.  "  The  same  idea  of  spontaneity  by  means  of 
which  Kant  reformed  empirical  epistemology  is  applied  by 
Biran  to  the  psychology  of  sensationalism.  That  which  was  an 
epistemological  hypothesis  in  the  first  instance  appears  as  a  psy- 
chological fact  in  the  second.  The  counterpart  of  the  transcen- 
dental function  of  the  understanding  meets  us  as  the  empirical 
activity  of  the  psychological  subject."  l  Konig  regards  Biran's 
psychological  deduction  of  the  categories  as  entirely  unsatisfactory. 
"  Although  Biran's  attempt  to  deduce  the  pure  concepts  of  the 
understanding  from  inner  perception  is  to  be  regarded  as  unsuc- 
cessful and  his  identification  of  the  logical  subject  with  the  subject 
as  object  of  inner  perception  is  an  error  which  manifests  itself  by 
its  consequences,  yet  his  work  is  of  great  interest,  etc."  2  Again, 
epistemology  "  has  emancipated  itself  more  and  more  from  psy- 
chology." :  Levy-Bruhl  finds  great  resemblance  between  Biran 
and  Kant  apparently  because  neither  the  one  nor  the  other 
believed  that  "  by  means  of  analysis  based  on  purely  internal 
experience,  we  can  .  .  .  arrive  at  the  notion  of  a  substantial 
ego."  4  But  we  find  that  in  Kant  soul-substance  is  opposed  to  a 
transcendental  unity  while  in  Biran  it  is  opposed  to  a  real  force. 

With  Kant  the  principle  of  activity  is  involved  throughout  the 
whole  of  consciousness.  With  Biran  it  is  a  particular  element 
in  consciousness.  Will  is  a  part  of  mind  over  against  other 
parts,  passive  elements,  as  pure  sensations,  desires,  pleasure,, 
pain,  etc.  Consciousness  is  a  sum  of  mental  elements,  which 
respectively  derive  their  significance  and  value  from  the  relation 
in  which  they  stand  to  the  active  element,  will,  rather  than  a 

iPhilosophische  Monatshefte,  Vol.  XXV,  pp.  160  ff. 

2  Ibid.,  p.  169. 

3 Ibid.,  pp.  190-191. 

*  History  of  Modern  Philosophy  in  France  (Eng.  trans.),  p.  327. 


1 8  MAINE  DE  BIRAN'S  PHILOSOPHY 

unity  which  is  organically  related  to  its  parts.  The  result  is  that, 
for  Biran,  the  self  is  one  element,  or  part,  abstracted  from  con- 
sciousness, rather  than  the  total  subjective  side  of  a  unitary  ex- 
perience. Consequently,  the  self  is  a  special  fact  to  be  verified 
by  introspection  in  the  same  manner  as  any  other  part  within 
consciousness.  It  differs  from  the  other  simple  elements  by 
reason  of  its  active  character,  and  its  universal  occurrence 
throughout  the  conscious  life  ;  but  not  by  including  the  other 
elements  within  itself.  The  difference  between  Kant  and  Biran 
will  become  very  clear  as  we  trace  the  relation  of  the  self  taken 
as  a  particular  element  to  the  ideas  of  substance,  identity,  and 
•causality.  And  it  will  also  receive  illustration  when  later  in  the 
psychology  we  trace  it  as  one  constituent  factor  in  the  mental 
life. 

Naville  places  Biran,  as  an  opponent  of  skepticism,  with  Kant 
and  Reid.  "  The  formal  denial  of  the  principle  of  causality  in 
the  writings  of  the  skeptical  Scotsman  (Hume)  gave  him  (Biran) 
the  full  consciousness  of  the  value  of  his  own  thought.  When 
we  consider  the  importance  which  he  attached  to  the  principle, 
and  the  attention  he  gave  to  the  arguments  of  the  skeptic  even  in 
their  minutest  detail,  we  feel  authorized  to  say  that  he  is  on  the 
same  ground  with  Kant  and  Reid.  .  .  .  He  accomplished  the 
same  work  of  struggle  and  restoration  as  Kant  and  Reid,  but  he 
accomplished  it  in  other  ways." l  Naville  compares  Biran's 
psychology  with  the  "phenomenalism  "  of  the  Scottish  school, 
as  represented  by  Dugald  Stewart. 

For  the  present  consideration,  however,  it  is  more  important 
to  compare  Biran's  principles  with  those  of  Reid,  as  the  real 
head  of  the  Scottish  school.  Seth-  has  shown  very  clearly 
Reid's  method  of  attacking  the  "Idealistic  school"  (Descartes, 
Locke,  and  Hume).  Reid  struck  directly  at  the  root-assumption, 
"  namely  that  experience  yields  as  its  ultimate  data  such  self-sub- 
sistent,  '  loose,'  or  relationless  units  of  sensation  as  Hume  be- 
gins and  ends  with."  2  "We  do  not  start,  he  insists,  with  ideas, 
but  with  judgments.  So  far  from  being  the  primitive  act  of 

1  (Ettvres  inedites,  Vol.  I,  pp.  cix,  ex. 

2  A.  Seth,  Scottish  Philosophy,  p.  73. 


BIRAN'S  RELATION  TO  EARLIER  THINKERS  19 

mind,  Simple  Apprehension  or  the  knowledge  of  sensations  per 
se,  is  a  species  of  abstract  contemplation."  l  "  Our  first  having 
of  a  sensation  is  at  the  same  time  the  knowledge  of  a  present 
object,  and  (implicitly)  of  that  object  as  somehow  related  to 
me."  l  Biran,  on  the  other  hand,  develops  farther  rather  than 
opposes  the  ideas  of  the  English  school.  He  reduces  the  theory 
of  simple  apprehension  to  more  ultimate  terms  but  does  not  sub- 
stitute for  that  theory  the  view  that  "judgment  is  the  primitive 
act  of  mind."  The  impression  is  something  requiring  analysis  ; 
but  it  is  explained  by  a  fact  of  immediate  experience.  The  im- 
mediate knowledge  of  the  self  is  a  particular  kind  of  simple  appre- 
hension rather  than  a  judgment. 

Another  point  of  difference  between  Reid  and  Biran  is  in  the 
character  of  the  ontology  which  is  required  by  their  respective 
theories  of  knowledge.  Seth  says  "  it  might  be  argued  that  by 
maintaining  a  theory  of  immediate  perception,  Scottish  philosophy 
destroys  the  foreignness  of  matter  to  mind,  and  thus  implicitly 
removes  the  only  foundation  of  a  real  dualism."2  Biran  very 
explicitly  teaches  dualism.  The  resistance  which  meets  the 
will  in  effort  is  foreign  to  the  self.  Our  knowledge  of  reality  may 
become  more  determinate  ;  but  that  reality  itself  always  remains 
an  independent  "  other  "  over  against  the  self. 

The  fundamental  differences  between  Reid  and  Biran  become 
still  clearer  when  we  consider  their  treatment  of  particular  topics. 
As  will  is  the  central  idea  in  Biran' s  system,  and  as  it  is  in  the 
act  of  will  that  we  discover  the  self,  it  is  advisable  to  consider 
what  will  is  for  Reid.  His  definition  is  as  follows  :  "  Every  man 
is  conscious  of  a  power  to  determine  in  things  which  he  conceives 
to  depend  upon  his  determination.  To  this  power  we  give  the 
name  of  will."  There  are  some  characteristics  of  will  which  we 
must  notice.  First,  "every  act  of  will  must  have  an  object"  :  a 
man  cannot  "will  without  willing  something."  Second,  "the 
immediate  object  of  will  must  be  some  action  of  our  own."  Third, 
"  the  object  of  our  volition  must  be  something  which  we  believe 
to  be  in  our  power  and  to  depend  upon  our  will."  Fourth, 

1  Op.  dt.,  p.  78. 

2  Ibid.,   pp.    76-77. 


2O  MAINE    DE    B1KAN  S    PHILOSOPHY 

"  volition  is  accompanied  with  an  effort  to  execute  that  which  we 
willed."  Finally,  "in  all  determinations  of  the  mind  that  are  of 
any  importance,  there  must  be  something  in  the  preceding  state 
of  the  mind  that  disposes  or  inclines  us  to  that  determination."  l 

In  Reid's  first  observation  concerning  the  will,  that  is,  in  the 
statement  that  the  will  must  have  an  object,  we  meet  with  a  diver- 
gence from  Biran's  view.  For  from  the  latter  standpoint,  the 
will,  it  is  true,  meets  a  resistance,  but  not  with  an  object  in  the 
strict  sense  of  the  term.  There  comes  to  be  an  object  only  after 
the  will  has  been  in  activity  and  the  resistance  has  been  abstracted 
from  the  complete  act  of  will.  In  fact,  the  resistance  does  not 
become  an  explicit  object  until  the  distinction  between  inner  and 
outer  experience  has  been  developed.  Passing  to  the  fourth 
characteristic  of  the  will,  that  is,  that  it  must  be  accompanied  by 
effort,  we  find  another  distinction  between  the  views  of  Reid  and 
of  Biran.  With  the  latter,  effort  is  not  a  second  act  supplemen- 
tary to  the  act  of  will,  but  it  is  our  consciousness  of  the  act  of 
will,  the  will  meets  with  resistance.  Reid  thinks  of  the  matter  in 
psychical  terms,  while  Biran  makes  the  act  depend  on  the  pres- 
ence of  the  muscular  system.  Finally,  in  Reid's  view,  there 
must  be  a  motive  to  will,  but  for  Biran  the  will  is  the  basis  of  all 
cognitive  experience,  and  consequently  of  all  explicit  motives. 
These  points  make  clear  the  radical  difference  in  the  ideas  of  will 
that  are  found  in  the  two  systems,  and  we  now  pass  on  to  differ- 
ences on  other  important  questions. 

Reid  makes  "judgment  and  belief  in  some  cases  precede  simple 
apprehension."  "  Instead  of  saying  that  the  belief  or  knowledge 
is  got  by  putting  together  and  comparing  the  simple  apprehen- 
sions, we  ought  rather  to  say  that  simple  apprehension  is  per- 
formed by  resolving  and  analysing  a  natural  and  original  j  udgment. ' ' 
"  The  belief  which  accompanies  sensation  and  memory  is  a  simple 
act  of  the  mind  which  cannot  be  defined."  2  Moreover  this 
belief  applies  to  the  subject  as  well  as  to  the  object.  "Thought 
must  have  a  subject  and  be  the  act  of  some  thinking  being."  The 
existence  of  the  subject  and  object  are  not  derived  from  sensa- 
tions. "They  are  judgments  of  nature  .  .  .  judgments  not  got 

1  Collected  Writings  (8th  ed.),  pp.  530-533 

2  Ibid.,  pp.  106-108. 


BIRAN  S    RELATION    TO    EARLIER    THINKERS  21 

by  comparing  ideas,  .  .  .  but  immediately  inspired  by  our  con- 
stitution." l  With  Biran  the  idea  of  the  subject  is  derived  from 
an  analysis  of  inner  sensation  ;  the  idea  of  the  object  is  developed 
from  the  resistance  which  meets  conscious  effort. 

With  Reid  notions  or  conceptions  are  distinguished  very  sharply 
from  sensations.  They  are  the  "  result  of  our  constitution,"  the 
power  by  which  they  are  acquired  "  is  neither  sensation  nor  re- 
flection." Extension,  figure,  and  motion  "  are  not  ideas  of  sensa- 
tion, nor  like  to  any  sensation."  2  With  Biran,  sensation  and 
perception  differ  simply  in  respect  to  the  degree  of  volitional  ac- 
tivity involved.  In  sensation  there  is  merely  enough  activity 
present  to  maintain  consciousness,  but  in  perception  the  self  is  in 
some  degree  attentive. 

Reid  answered  Hume  by  attacking  the  principle  that  ideas,  or 
impressions,  are  the  only  reality.  The  self  and  the  object  are 
real  and  are  known  by  natural  judgments.  Biran  answered  Hume 
by  finding  an  idea,  or  impression,  which  had  been  overlooked  in 
the  analysis,  that  is,  the  feeling  of  self  discovered  in  the  conscious- 
ness of  effort. 

1  Op.  df.,  p.  no. 

*Ibid.,  p.  128. 


SECTION    IV. 

PSYCHOLOGICAL  BASIS  OF  BIRAN'S  PHILOSOPHY. 

In  giving  a  general  account  of  Maine  de  Biran's  philosophy  in 
its  completed  form  I  shall  follow  the  divisions  of  the  subject  which 
he  made  in  the  Essai  sur  les  fondements  de  la  psychologic.  We 
shall  look  first  at  the  primitive  fact  of  consciousness,  then  at  the 
deduction  of  the  categories,  and  finally  at  the  psychology.  First, 
there  is  a  description  of  the  primitive  fact  of  voluntary  activity  in 
which  the  author  maintains  that  we  have  a  direct  perception  of 
the  self.  This  fact  is  for  him  the  real  basis  of  consciousness. 
Secondly,  the  primitive  fact  of  consciousness  gives  what  he  re- 
gards as  a  real  basis  for  the  ideas  of  substance,  causality,  and 
unity.  We  have  then  in  this  connection  his  metaphysics  in  so 
far  as  he  has  given  one.  Finally,  in  the  third  part  of  the  work 
there  is  the  psychology  proper,  in  which  the  principle  of  volun- 
tary activity  is  traced  through  the  various  degrees  of  relation  that 
it  sustains  to  an  underlying  basis  of  unconscious  and  purely  affec- 
tive life. 

/  Maine  de  Biran's  philosophy  is  founded  upon  psychology, 
in  the  sense  that  he  aims  to  derive  rather  than  postulate  episte- 
mological  principles.  The  beginning  is  a  fact,  but  it  is  not  a 
fact  in  the  common  signification  of  the  term,  in  the  sense  of  a 
relation  independent  of  the  subject ;  it  is  a  fact  of  inner  experience 
(sens  intime),  the  primary  activity  of  consciousness.  The  philoso- 
pher is  very  careful  to  define  this  ultimate  factor  of  experience 
and  knowledge.  He  distinguishes  it  from  simple  sensation  by 
elaborating  the  difficulties  involved  in  the  contingent  and  unrelated 
character  of  external  impressions  ;  and  he  differentiates  it  from  per- 
ception in  general  by  emphasizing  the  relative  character  of  objec- 
tive knowledge.  We  do  not  apply  the  name  fact  to  all  that  ex- 
ists for  us,  all  that  we  perceive  without  or  sense  within  ourselves, 
or  all  that  we  can  conceive.  We  have  a  fact  only  when  we  are 
aware  of  our  own  individual  existence  and  of  the  existence  of 

22 


PSYCHOLOGICAL    BASIS    OF    BIRAN  S    PHILOSOPHY  2$ 

something  else,  an  object  or  modification,  that  accompanies  our 
own  existence  and  yet  is  distinct  from  it.  "A  fact  is  nothing 
unless  it  is  known,  unless  there  is  an  individual  and  permanent 
subject  which  knows."  l 

This  definition  excludes  mere  sensation  from  the  category  of  fact. 
And,  in  consequence,  we  cannot  place  the  origin  of  knowledge 
in  sensation.  So  long  as  the  subject  is  identified  with  its  modifi- 
cation, so  long  as  it  has  no  individual  existence,  or  self,  and  is  not 
distinguished  from  the  object  that  is  known,  we  do  not  have 
knowledge.  On  this  distinction  rests  the  fact  of  knowledge  which 
we  can  justly  call  primitive,  for  nothing  can  be  conceived  without 
it  and  all  other  knowledge  presupposes  it  as  a  necessary  condi- 
tion.2 To  be  self  or  in  self  is  essential  if  one  is  to  perceive  the 
simplest  fact  or  know  in  the  slightest  degree.  There  is  also 
a  negative  proof  of  this  position.  Experience  shows  that  the 
more  vividly  we  are  affected,  the  less  our  impressions  or  the 
objects  which  excite  them  are  facts  for  us.  Consequently,  we 
can  conclude  that  there  would  be  no  knowledge  of  any  kind 
for  a  purely  sensitive  being.  The  primitive  fact  is  not  the  simple 
sensation,  but  the  idea  of  the  sensation  which  is  possible  only  with 
the  individuality  of  the  self.3 

The  conception  of  the  basis  of  consciousness  as  a  relation  be- 
tween the  self  and  the  not-self  seems  at  first  to  exclude  the  dis- 
tinction of  facts  of  inner  experience  from  sensations  and  represen- 
.tation  in  general.  The  self  and  the  object  are  known  only  in 
immediate  relation  to  each  other.  How  is  the  self  or  the  single 
subject  to  know  itself  as  independent  of  all  sensible  modifications. 
According  to  Biran  the  confusion  results  from  neglecting  to  deter- 
mine the  primary  condition  which  makes  external  objects  possi- 
ble. If  the  self  is  identified  with  its  affective  sensations  and  exists 
only  in  and  through  them,  it  does  not  exist  for  itself.  There  is  no 
relation,  no  fact,  and  no  knowledge.  But  if  the  self  is  distinguished 
from,  as  well  as  united  to,  each  of  its  sensations,  so  that  there  are 
internal  facts  of  consciousness  and  specific  sensations,  the  latter 

1  CEuvres  inedites,  Vol.  I,  p.  36. 

2  Cf.  ibid.,  Vol.  I,  pp.  37-38. 
a  Cf.  ibid.,  Vol.  I,  pp.  38-39. 


24  MAINE    DE    BIRAN's    PHILOSOPHY 

are  purely  passive  in  principle  and  cannot  serve  as  the  basis  of 
knowledge  ;  they  are  merely  hypothetical  elements.1 

Sensations  are  constantly  varying  both  on  account  of  external 
causes  and  on  account  of  the  condition  of  the  sense  organs. 
Sometimes  they  disappear  from  consciousness,  at  other  times 
they  obscure  it  by  their  intensity.  They  have  not  the  permanence 
which  we  expect  in  the  source  of  knowledge.  In  themselves 
they  do  not  have  the  nature  of  relations.  If  they  gain  this  char- 
acter through  the  judgment  of  externality  they  are  facts  but  are 
no  longer  ultimate.  The  primitive  relation  cannot  be  determined 
so  long  as  one  of  the  elements  is  a  vague  notion  of  a  sense  ob- 
ject. No  one  of  the  external  senses  can  supply  the  kind  of  term 
required  in  that  constant  union  which  is  the  fundamental  relation 
of  consciousness.  We  are  compelled  to  look  beyond  sensation 
for  the  necessary  element  in  the  original  duality,  or  the  primitive 
fact  of  inner  experience.  For  the  requirement  of  constant  and 
reciprocal  relation  of  the  two  terms  is  not  satisfied  either  by  af- 
fective or  by  representative  sensation.  Even  when  sensation  is  re- 
garded as  a  primitive  duality,  the  subject  as  simple  and  permanent 
is  distinguished  from  an  object  or  mode,  which  is  variable ;  but 
this  is  to  describe  elements  which  are  abstracted  from  the  rela- 
tion which  alone  causes  them.2 

After  this  negative  argument  to  show  that  sensation  cannot  be 
the  ultimate  datum  which  we  require,  Maine  de  Biran  proceeds 
to  determine  positively  the  nature  of  the  primitive  fact.  If  the 
subject  is  one  and  simple,  and  a  real  existence  rather  than  a  pure 
abstraction,  we  can  say  further  that  the  self,  like  any  other  exis- 
tence, is  a  fact  only  as  a  variable  or  permanent  mode  of  a  sub- 
stance, or  as  an  effect  of  a  cause  which  determines  it.  We  have 
to  ask  if  the  self  is  given  to  itself  in  the  primitive  fact  as  a  modi- 
fied subject,  or  as  a  cause,  or  force  which  is  productive  of  certain 
effects.  This  question  has  been  neglected,  or  rather  it  has  been 
assumed  that  the  soul  is  a  substance,  and  thus  no  place  has  been 
left  for  the  principle  of  activity.  It  is  true  that  we  have  in  our 
minds  the  idea  of  substance  ;  but  it  is  not  difficult  to  prove  that 

1  Cf.  op.  cit.,  Vol.  I,  pp.  40-43. 

2  Cf.  ibid.,  Vol.  I,  p.  45. 


PSYCHOLOGICAL    BASIS    OF    BIRAN'S    PHILOSOPHY  25 

the  notion  depends  upon  a  deduction  from  primitive  facts.  We 
find  also  in  ourselves  the  notion  of  cause  or  force,  but  prior  to 
the  notion  is  the  immediate  experience  of  force.  This  experience 
is  no  other  than  that  of  our  very  existence,  which  is  inseparable 
from  activity.  We  could  not  know  ourselves  as  individual  per- 
sons, if  we  did  not  feel  ourselves  as  the  cause  of  movements  pro- 
duced in  the  organic  body.  The  cause  or  force  actually  applied 
in  the  movement  of  the  body  is  active  and  is  called  will.  The  self 
identifies  itself  completely  with  this  active  force.  But  only 
through  its  exercise  is  the  force  a  fact  for  the  self;  and  this  ac- 
tivity occurs  only  in  relation  to  an  inert  or  resisting  limit.  The 
force  is  actualized  only  in  relation  to  its  goal ;  and  the  goal  is 
determinate  only  in  relation  to  the  force  which  tends  to  move  it. 
The  fact  of  this  tendency  is  effort,  or  volition,  which  is  the  primi- 
tive fact  of  inner  experience.1 

Effort  is  a  fact,  since  it  consists  in  a  relation  between  a  force 
and  the  limit  of  the  force.  The  fact  is  primitive,  since  it  is  the 
first  in  the  order  of  knowledge.  The  first  sensations  which  give 
the  first  perceptions  are  themselves  aroused  by  the  same  individual 
force  that  creates  effort.  This  primitive  effort  is  a  fact  of  inner 
experience,  because  it  does  not  go  beyond  its  immediate  applica- 
tion, the  inertia  of  the  physical  organs.  It  is  the  simplest  of  all 
relations,  since  all  our  perceptions  depend  on  it  as  their  essential 
condition  and  formal  element;  and  the  judgment  of  externality 
rests  on  and  is  an  extension  of  it.  Finally,  it  is  the  single  rela- 
tion which  is  invariable ;  the  constant  result  of  an  identical  force 
acting  on  an  identical  goal.2  In  the  Anthropologie,  Maine  de  Biran 
gives  a  somewhat  closer  determination  of  the  nature  of  the  effort 
which  is  a  fundamental  fact  in  his  system  ;  the  active  element  does 
not  depend  upon  the  passive  element  in  human  nature.  "  Life 
and  the  material  organism,  which  is  an  actual  and  perhaps  a 
necessary  condition  of  certain  forms  of  thought,  does  not  originate 
the  thought."  3  To  bring  this  out  clearly,  movement  is  classified 
as  instinctive,  spontaneous,  or  voluntary.  Spontaneous  move- 
ment is  that  which  is  "  produced  by  the  direct  action  of  the  brain," 

1  Cf.  op.  cit.,  Vol.  I,  p.  47. 
*Cf.  ibid.,  Vol.  I,  p.  48. 
*Ibid.,  Vol.  Ill,  p.  376. 


26  MAINE    DE    BIRAN'S    PHILOSOPHY 

while  instinctive  movement  is  "  produced  by  a  reaction  of  the  same 
center  following  sensible  impressions  of  the  inner  organs."  The 
important  question  for  Maine  de  Biran  is  the  relation  of  the  sev- 
eral classes  of  movements.  "  The  development  of  animal  life 
must  necessarily  lead  to  the  transformation  of  the  first  insensible, 
instinctive  movement  .  .  .  into  spontaneous  movements  which 
can  be  sensed  in  the  animal  and  distinctly  perceived  when  they 
exist  in  man.  We  ask  now  if  the  spontaneous  movements  can 
be  transformed  immediately  into  voluntary  movements."  Physi- 
ology shows  that  the  cerebral  center  functions  in  automatic  as  in 
voluntary  movements.  But  "  something  more  enters  into  the 
activity  of  the  will  in  bodily  movements  than  enters  into  the  func- 
tions of  the  nervous  and  cerebral  organism,  and  that  something 
more,  under  whatever  title  it  is  expressed,  must  be  considered 
as  ...  a  hyper-organic  force,"  2  which  stands  to  the  nervous 
system  as  the  latter  stands  to  the  muscular  system.  This  is  a 
characteristic  of  man  as  distinguished  from  the  lower  animals. 
Spontaneous  movements  which  form  the  transition  from  instinct 
to  will  are  "the  limit  of  development  of  the  purely  animal  life," 
but  "the  beginning  of  the  active  life."  We  catch  a  glimpse  of 
the  passage  from  spontaneous  to  volitional  movements  in  waking. 
Then  "  the  self  reenters  its  domain  and  seizes  the  products  of  a 
force  which  is  not  its  own."  3 

In  a  letter  to  Ampere,  Biran  says  that  "  the  sense  of  effort  is 
the  s"ame  as  the  active  muscular  sense."  *  He  does  not  admit 
effort  in  the  "  mere  action  of  the  hyper-organic  force  on  the 
brain,  but  in  that  action  transmitted  to  the  muscular  organism."  4 

The  cause  of  the  effort  becomes  self  through  the  distinction 
which  arises  between  the  subject  of  the  free  effort  and  the  limit 
which  immediately  resists  the  effort.  In  this  sense,  the  conscious- 
ness of  effort  is  the  self  and  is  known  in  its  activity.  It  cannot 
be  known  without  this  activity  any  more  than  we  could  really 
know  what  colors  are  without  visual  sensations.  But  in  either 
case  we  can  study  the  physical  or  organic  means  by  which  the 

1  Op.  tit.,  Vol.  Ill,  pp.  458-59. 

*I6M.,  Vol.  Ill,  p.  465. 

» Ibid.,  Vol.  Ill,  p.  470. 

4  A.  Bertrand  in  Rei'ue  de  Metaphysique  et  de  Morale,  Vol.  I,  pp.  318-19. 


PSYCHOLOGICAL    BASIS    OF    BIRAN's    PHILOSOPHY  2J 

experience  comes  about.  This  is  especially  necessary  when  deal- 
ing with  inner  experience,  in  order  clearly  to  distinguish  the  per- 
ception of  the  subject  from  the  perception  of  objects.  The  con- 
sciousness of  effort  is  restricted  to  that  part  of  the  muscular  sys- 
tem which  the  will  can  call  directly  into  play.  Voluntary  effort 
differs  essentially  from  the  muscular  sensation,  or  sensation  of 
movement  which  we  have  when  any  part  of  the  muscular  system 
is  moved  by  an  external  force.  There  is  no  excitation,  or  stimu- 
lus ;  but  the  movement  is  produced  without  any  force  other  than 
that  which  perceives  itself  immediately  in  its  exercise.  When 
we  symbolize  the  activity  by  physiological  signs,  we  can  say  the 
volitional  force  passes  from  the  center  of  the  nervous  system  to 
the  voluntary  muscles,  while  the  simple  muscular  sensation  arises 
at  the  periphery  and  terminates  at  the  nervous  center.  In  the 
analysis  we  are  compelled  to  resort  to  these  physiological  terms, 
but  in  the  fact  of  inner  experience  we  find  that  voluntary  activity 
is  really  indivisible  and  instantaneous.1 

There  are  two  moments  of  volitional  activity.  The  first  cor- 
responds to  the  simple  motor  determination  of  the  nervous  sys- 
tem and  does  not  seem  to  involve  any  inner  perception ;  but  even 
if  it  did,  it  would  not  be  the  symbol  of  individuality.  The  self 
does  not  know  itself  until  it  distinguishes  itself,  as  subject  of 
effort,  from  a  resisting  limit.  Prior  to  this  the  inner  perception 
can  be  no  more  than  a  vague  consciousness  of  existence.  The 
second  moment  corresponds  to  the  muscular  contraction  and  the: 
report  to  the  nervous  center.  This  completes  the  inner  percep- 
tion of  effort,  which  is  inseparable  from  a  resisting  limit.2 

As  already  indicated,  we  have  in  this  statement  of  Maine  de 
Biran's  fundamental  position  the  important  characteristics  by- 
which  he  distinguishes  his  philosophy  from  other  forms  of  em- 
piricism and  from  rationalism.  The  sensation  apart  from  the  sub- 
ject of  consciousness  is  really  nothing  for  that  consciousness. 
The  attempt  to  substantialize  pure  sensation,  by  neglecting  its 
relation  to  the  subject,  and  then  to  develop  it  into  knowledge  by 
means  of  a  purely  logical  process  was,  according  to  Biran,  the 

1  Cf.  (Euvres  intdites,  Vol.  I,  pp.  208-12. 

2  Cf.  ibid.,  Vol.  I,  pp.  212-213. 


28  MAINE    DE    BIRAN's    PHILOSOPHY 

error  of  later  empiricism,  especially  in  the  case  of  Condillac. 
This  unfortunate  result  was  due  to  the  defective  psychological 
analysis  which  neglected  elements  because  they  were  not  readily 
associated  with  particular  objects  in  the  external  world.  On  the 
other  hand,  the  error  of  rationalism  was  the  fact  that  it  substan- 
tialized the  soul  itself.  A  system  was  built  on  the  idea  of  con- 
sciousness made  absolute.  With  Descartes  the  beginning  was 
mind  substance  and  its  correlate  material  substance  instead  of  the 
actual  effort  and  resistance  of  psychological  analysis.  Leibnitz 
came  nearer  to  an  adequate  statement  by  his  emphasis  of  inde- 
pendent activity  as  the  essential  characteristic  of  substance ;  yet 
he  also  made  the  force  absolute,  contrary  to  the  evidence  of  in- 
trospection. In  the  primitive  fact  of  our  volitional  activity  Maine 
de  Biran  believes  that  he  finds  a  datum  that  is  at  once  dependent 
upon  experience  and  yet  can  serve  as  a  real  basis  for  the  expla- 
nation of  consciousness.  Experience,  according  to  him,  when 
accurately  analyzed,  yields  a  fact  which  has  all  the  advantages  of 
an  a  priori  principle.  The  unitary  and  unchangeable  character 
of  effort  is  due  to  the  circumstance  that  the  two  terms  of  the 
relation,  the  self,  and  the  resistance  remain  constant.  The  re- 
sistance is  primarily  our  own  body.  The  general  criticism  of  the 
empiricists  and  the  rationalists  is  that  the  former  did  not  carry 
their  analysis  far  enough,  while  the  latter  carried  it  too  far,  and 
that  each  school  substituted  abstractions  for  facts. 

But  Maine  de  Biran  himself  does  not  avoid  the  fault  of  abstrac- 
tion which  he  attributed  to  his  predecessors.  If  we  consider 
actual  experience,  we  do  not  find  his  primitive  fact  in  the 
isolated  form  in  which  he  describes  it.  The  distinction  and 
the  correlation  of  objective  and  subjective  factors  extend  through 
all  experience.  Effort  is  not  a  conscious  fact,  unless  it  is  judged. 
Consequently  the  effort  which  Biran  makes  a  fundamental  princi- 
ple is  not  the  result  of  a  simple  analysis  of  experience,  but  is  de- 
rived only  by  abstraction  from  ideational  factors  which  are  always 
associated  with  it.  Perception  of  the  self  is  not  given  simply 
in  experience.  The  difficulties  of  his  position  become  apparent 
when  we  notice  the  implications  involved  in  each  of  the  two 
senses  in  which  effort  may  be  employed  as  an  explanatory  prin- 


PSYCHOLOGICAL    BASIS    OF    BIRAN  S    PHILOSOPHY  29 

ciple  of  conscious  activity.  If,  ( I )  while  admitting  that  in  simple 
analysis  the  external  reference  is  as  ultimate  as  volitional  activity 
for  consciousness,  it  is  still  maintained  that  from  the  point  of  view 
of  origin  the  volitional  factor  is  more  ultimate ;  in  other  words,  if 
we  make  the  problem  one  of  genesis,  the  effort  is  then  no  longer 
a  primitive  fact  but  a  conceptual  construction  which  we  are  using 
as  a  ground  for  the  explanation  of  consciousness  very  much  in 
the  same  manner  in  which  Condillac  used  sensation,  or  Descartes 
used  soul  substance.  More  technically  stated,  Maine  de  Biran 
makes  the  feeling  of  effort,  which  he  regards  as  the  primitive  fact 
of  consciousness,  serve  also  as  the  logical  ground  of  conscious- 
ness. There  is  a  confusion  of  method,  a  failure  to  distinguish  the 
facts  of  introspective  analysis  from  those  of  genetic  description. 
He  would  doubtless  himself  say  that  there  is  no  confusion,  that 
his  greatest  merit  was  the  discovery  of  a  fact  which  was  at  the 
same  time  a  principle  of  explanation.  But  in  considering  that 
discovery  we  should  note  that  for  him  there  is  no  fact  apart  from 
consciousness :  the  first  fact  is  a  relation.  The  primitive  feeling 
of  effort  is  the  genetic  source  of  the  idea  of  an  external  world ; 
but  that  fact  itself  involves  the  idea  of  another,  a  resistance.  We 
cannot  have  an  idea,  a  consciousness  of  another,  or  a  resistance, 
apart  from  the  idea  of  something,  perhaps  indefinite,  which  is  in 
some  sense  external  to  the  self.  That  is,  the  thought  of  con- 
sciousness involves  the  thought  of  a  reference  beyond  the  self. 
But  if  (2),  the  effort  in  question  is  taken  to  be  logically  but  not  tem- 
porally prior  to  consciousness,  it  is  no  longer  the  primitive  fact 
of  consciousness,  in  the  strict  sense.  A  logical  distinction  be- 
tween inner  and  outer  experience  seems  to  be  given  a  psycholog- 
ical significance,  and  in  virtue  of  this  distinction  a  psychological 
abstraction  is  made  the  ultimate  principle  of  consciousness.  These 
difficulties  are  raised  with  no  desire  to  depreciate  the  value  of 
Biran' s  emphasis  of  conscious  activity,  but  merely  to  question 
the  adequacy  of  his  psychological  basis  of  epistemology.  The 
deficiencies  of  the  method  will  be  more  apparent  when  we  have 
seen  its  application  in  Biran's  detailed  accounts  of  the  principles 
of  consciousness  and  of  the  phenomena  of  mental  life.  We  shall 
now  consider  his  deduction  of  the  principles  of  substance,  causal- 
ity, unity,  et  cetera. 


SECTION   V. 

DEDUCTION  OF  THE  CATEGORIES. 

Passing  to  the  deduction  of  the  categories,  we  see  that  effort 
as  it  is  found  in  the  inner  conscious  experience,  is  the  basis,  ac- 
cording to  Maine  de  Biran,  of  our  ultimate  metaphysical  ideas. 
To  the  exercise  of  the  faculty  of  inner  perception,  we  owe  not 
only  the  consciousness  of  the  self  but  also  the  primary  ideas  of 
being,  cause,  substance,  and  unity.  These  ideas  differ  from  the 
abstract  class  notions  with  which  they  are  often  confused.  They 
are  natural  and  necessary  rather  than  artificial  and  arbitrary. 
They  are  the  conditions  of  thought  and  belong  to  the  beginning 
of  knowledge  instead  of  being  mere  means  or  symbols.  And 
finally  they  are  independent  of  the  natural  impressions  with  which 
they  are  associated.  They  cannot,  however,  belong  exclusively 
to  the  very  nature  of  an  unconditioned  and  independent  soul  ; 
but  must,  on  the  other  hand,  have  their  origin  in  experience. 
We  must  not  presuppose  anything  innate ;  analysis  should  be 
carried  as  far  as  possible.  With  the  results  already  attained  in 
regard  to  the  origin  of  personality,  Biran  thinks  he  can  explain 
the  ideas  in  question  without  referring  them  to  sensation  or  to  the 
nature  of  the  soul.  Prior  to  the  self  there  is  no  actual  or  possible 
knowledge.  Since  it  is  only  necessary  to  introspect  in  order  to 
have  the  idea  of  being,  of  substance,  of  cause,  and  of  unity  ;  we 
may  say  that  each  of  the  ideas  has  its  immediate  origin  in  the 
consciousness  of  the  self.  They  can  always  be  reduced  from  the 
form  in  which  they  appear  to  the  immediate  and  permanent  type 
which  they  have  in  inner  experience.1 

The  idea  of  force  can  be  originally  derived  only  from  the  con- 
sciousness of  the  subject  who  experiences  effort.  Even  when  the 
idea  is  already  abstracted  from  the  fact  of  consciousness,  it  still 
bears  the  imprint  of  its  origin.  We  cannot  conceive  any  force  of 
attraction  or  repulsion  in  bodies  without  attributing,  to  some  ex- 

1  Cf.  op.  cit.,  Vol.  I,  p.  248. 
3° 


DEDUCTION    OF   THE    CATEGORIES  31 

* 

tent,  to  the  bodies  the  individual  force  which  is  constitutive  of 
the  self.1 

The  idea  of  substance  can  be  derived  from  the  elements  of  the 
fact  of  consciousness  or  from  the  primitive  duality.  It  refers  to 
what  subsists  or  remains  constant  at  the  core  of  various  manifes- 
tations, and  to  what  is  beyond  the  manifestations  as  their  common 
bond  of  union.  The  first  is  the  total  form  of  effort  which  remains 
identical  in  the  two  terms,  force  and  resistance ;  the  second  is  the 
organic  resistance  which  is  associated  with  all  sensible  modifica- 
tions. This  organic  resistance  is  a  permanent  base,  a  true  sub- 
strate. It  is  no  more  an  abstraction  than  is  the  subject  of  effort, 
or  the  self,  of  which  it  is  the  correlate.  Beyond  all  variable 
modifications  of  sensibility,  effort  and  resistance  remain  the  same. 
They  are  subject  and  object  or  antecedent  and  consequent  term 
of  the  fundamental  relation  of  personality.2 

Thus  in  effort  and  resistance,  as  they  exist  in  inner  experience, 
Biran  finds  the  source  of  the  abstract  notions  of  substance  and 
force.  It  is  through  the  neglect  of  this  ultimate  source  that  in- 
soluble questions  have  arisen  in  regard  to  the  ideas.  Some  have 
wished  to  make  the  ideas  absolute  and  to  derive  the  real  from  the 
possible  ;  others  have  denied  the  reality  of  the  ideas,  since  they 
could  not  reduce  them  to  clear  representations  of  sense  or  imagi- 
nation. The  idea  of  substance  and  the  idea  of  force  which  are 
derived  from  ourselves  and  conceived  by  a  reference  to  ourselves 
have  all  the  reality  and  truth  of  facts  of  inner  experience ;  but 
their  proof  becomes  obscure  when  they  are  applied  to  external 
things.  When  we  abstract  entirely  from  the  consciousness  of  the 
self  and  leave  only  the  bare  exercise  of  effort,  we  have  the  mate- 
rial, so  to  speak,  of  the  idea  of  absolute  force.  Yet,  in  spite  of 
ourselves,  a  confused  consciousness  of  our  own  force  will  mingle 
with  that  abstract  idea.  Similarly,  by  abstracting  bare  resistance 
from  the  consciousness  of  a  continuously  resisting  limit,  we  form 
the  notion  of  absolute  or  possible  resistance,  that  is,  of  substance. 
This  idea  is  always  conceived  under  the  form  of  passivity  and 
modeled  after  the  organic  resistance  which  the  self  perceives 
when  it  is  distinguishing  itself  in  the  exercise  of  effort. 

1  Cf.  op.  cit.,  Vol.  I,  p.  249. 

2  Cf.  ibid.,  Vol.  I,  p.  250. 


32  MAINE    DE    BIRAN'S    PHILOSOPHY 

Thus  the  abstract  notion  of  substance  is  more  obscure  than 
that  of  force,  and  belongs  to  a  point  of  view  more  foreign  to  us. 
When  the  primitive  duality  as  the  source  of  all  knowledge  is 
analyzed  into  its  two  elements,  the  subjective  or  formal  side,  the 
idea  of  force  or  activity,  is  made  the  principle  of  psychology.  The 
objective  element,  as  the  prototype  of  the  idea  of  substance,  is 
taken  as  the  principle  of  physics.  This  order  cannot  be  set  aside, 
that  is,  the  notion  of  substance  cannot  be  made  the  principle  of 
psychology,  or  the  notion  of  force  the  principle  of  physics,  with- 
out distorting  the  purposes  of  the  sciences.  Moreover,  if  either 
principle  is  considered  as  absolute  and  the  source  which  the  idea 
must  have  in  a  primary  relation  is  neglected,  the  true  process  of 
knowledge  is  inverted  and  the  result  is  an  abstract  science  which 
is  foreign  to  the  reality  of  things.1  We  find  this  scheme  of  the 
sciences  repeated  and  elaborated  in  the  psychology. 

The  primitive  ideas  always  elude  the  imagination  and  sense- 
perception.  The  sense  of  touch,  although  it  is  very  important  in 
externalizing  our  ideas  of  force  and  substance,  has  nothing  to  do 
with  their  formation.  We  do  not  touch  the  substrate  of  tactual 
forms  any  more  than  we  see  the  real  substance  of  light.  Sub- 
stance cannot  be  represented  by  the  imagination.  It  is  conceived 
only  in  necessary  relation  to  a  certain  union  of  qualities  of  which 
it  is  regarded  as  the  subject.  But,  although  the  imagination  has 
to  do  only  with  combined  elements,  or  groups  ;  reason  must 
nevertheless  presuppose  the  reality  of  the  subject.  It  is  the 
unrepresented  subject  and  not  the  modes  that  is  conceived  as 
existing  and  acting.2 

The  reality  of  the  principle  of  causality  depends,  according  to 
Maine  de  Biran,  upon  the  possibility  of  identifying  it  with  self-con- 
sciousness or  with  the  primitive  fact  of  consciousness.  We  sub- 
stitute a  logical  entity  for  a  fact  when  we  begin  with  the  abstract 
idea  and  set  up  the  category  of  causality,  or  when  we  regard  it 
as  a  form  of  the  mind,  or  a  mere  regulative  principle  of  knowl- 
edge. But  we  do  not  recognize  the  real  value  of  the  principle  of 
causality  when  we  regard  it  simply  as  the  law  of  phenomenal  suc- 

1  Cf.  op.  cit.,  Vol.  I,  p.  253. 
*Cf.  ibid.,  Vol.  I,  pp.  254-5. 


DEDUCTION    OF    THE    CATEGORIES  33 

cession.  It  is  easy,  however,  to  show  the  difference,  or  even  the 
opposition,  that  there  is  between  the  idea  of  succession  and  the 
idea  of  productive  cause.  The  empiricists  failed  to  do  away  with 
the  real  application  of  causality.  They  tried  to  reduce  all  cause 
to  laws  of  succession  ;  but  while  they  were  able  to  discover  some 
laws  and  to  classify  effects,  the  real  efficient  causes  remained 
indeterminate.  Each  class  of  phenomena  involved  an  unknown 
something  which  was  felt  to  be  incommensurate  with  any  sensible 
idea.  The  efficient  cause  obstinately  persisted  in  the  mind  even 
when  its  manner  of  operation  was  entirely  hidden  from  the  imagi- 
nation. The  failure  of  the  empiricists  to  substitute  the  relation 
of  succession  for  that  of  causality  has  been  an  argument  in  favor 
of  the  a  priori  character  of  the  latter  principle.  A  priori  ideas, 
however,  disappear  before  introspection.  The  idea  of  cause  has 
its  primitive  type  in  self-consciousness  where  it  is  indentified  with 
the  idea  of  effort. 

When  Biran  considered  Hume's  analysis  of  the  idea  of  power, 
he  found  in  the  facts  which  were  brought  out  another  reason  for 
the  view  already  presented.  After  having  shown  that  the  prin- 
ciple of  causality  could  not  have  its  ground  in  external  experience, 
Hume  asked  if  the  idea  of  efficient  cause,  or  necessary  relation, 
could  be  based  on  the  inner  consciousness  of  our  own  force,  that 
is,  on  the  power  of  the  will  over  the  physical  organs  or  mental 
processes.  He  concluded  that  it  could  not.  But  the  conclusion 
resulted  from  the  denial  of  our  ability  to  experience  any  force,  in 
any  other  way  than  we  experience  the  activity  in  natural  phenom- 
ena. He  made  the  value  of  external  experience  coordinate  with 
that  of  internal  experience,  and  thus  cut  himself  off  from  the 
possibility  of  finding  what  he  sought.  In  his  view  the  influence 
of  volition  over  the  bodily  organs  "  is  a  fact,  which,  like  all  other 
natural  events,  can  be  known  only  by  experience,  and  can  never 
be  foreseen  from  any  apparent  energy  or  power  in  the  cause."  l 
Biran  maintains  that  it  is  not  a  question  of  foreseeing,  but  rather 
of  sensing  or  apprehending  the  existence  of  the  force.  Yet,  as  a 
matter  of  fact,  the  will  or  the  very  first  voluntary  effort  is  deter- 
minate and  carries  with  it  a  vague  consciousness  of  success, 

1  Hume's  Enquiries  (Selby-Bigge),  pp.  64-65. 


34  MAINE  DE  BIRAN'S  PHILOSOPHY 

otherwise  we  should  have  merely  desire.  It  is  this  characteristic 
which  distinguishes  voluntary  movement  from  sensitive  reaction, 
and  the  facts  of  inner  experience  from  natural  phenomena.  Hume 
thought  we  could  not  know  actual  volitional  force  because  we 

o 

do  not  know  how  it  acts.  His  illusory  assimilation  of  the  two 
kinds  of  knowledge  is  the  basis  of  his  mistake.  We  know  the 
power  of  the  will  over  the  voluntary  muscular  system,  but  we 
cannot  represent  it  to  ourselves  as  we  can  represent  an  external 
movement.  The  two  processes  are  entirely  different.  We  cannot 
perceive  colors  by  picturing  to  ourselves  the  optic  nerve,  the  ret- 
ina, and  the  luminous  object.  To  know  objectively  the  occult 
relations  of  our  own  volitions,  we  need  at  the  same  time  to  be 
ourselves  and  another.  The  power  is  known  as  presented  only 
to  the  motor  being.  The  effect  or  movement  is  represented  only 
as  we  separate  ourselves  entirely  from  the  being  to  which  we  at- 
tribute the  effect.  It  is  only  thus  that  the  latter  becomes  an  ex- 
ternal phenomenon.  When  we  wish  to  conceive  the  power  in  its 
effect,  we  must  establish  the  homogeneity  between  the  two  terms 
of  the  primitive  relation  of  causality.  We  must  take  account  of 
the  fact  of  consciousness.  There  the  subject  of  the  effort  per- 
ceives himself,  in  inner  experience,  as  the  cause  of  a  movement 
which  is  simultaneously  sensed,  not  represented,  as  an  effect. 

The  inevitable  effect  of  habituation  is  to  lessen,  by  insensible 
degrees,  the  consciousness  of  the  movements  or  acts  which  are 
repeated.  This  result  is  especially  marked  in  the  case  of  inner 
experience.  The  principle  becomes  dim  as  its  external  manifes- 
tations grow  clear.  Just  as  a  light  of  uniform  intensity  to  which 
we  are  accustomed  is  not  perceptible  in  itself  and  is  known  only 
from  the  objects  which  it  illuminates,  so  voluntary  effort  tends  to 
disappear  among  the  various  modifications  to  which  it  gives  a 
base  and  an  individual  form.  Thus  the  feeling  of  power  or  will 
decreases,  and  the  causes  of  external  phenomena  get  the  ascen- 
dency in  consciousness.  Necessitated  by  our  nature  to  direct  our 
attention  to  these  causes,  we  come  to  attribute  to  them  the  very 
activity  by  which  we  have  made  them  our  objects.  Thus,  habit 
which  Hume  regarded  as  an  illusory  influence  in  the  formation 
of  our  idea  of  cause  is  the  very  factor  which  tends  most  to  blind 


DEDUCTION  OF  THE  CATEGORIES  35 

us  to  the  origin  of  that  idea  and  the  true  principle  of  its  ap- 
plication.1 The  same  circumstance  which  led  to  the  attack 
of  skepticism  upon  the  principle  of  causality  has  motived  the 
errors  of  dogmatism.  The  natural  relation  which  unites  motor 
force  to  its  limiting  term  and  the  subject  of  effort  to  resistance 
has  been  construed  in  terms  of  a  mysterious  influence,  of  the  in- 
tervention of  God,  and  of  preestablished  harmony. 

Lang  gives  a  very  sympathetic  account  of  Biran's  principle  of 
causality,  but  is  not,  I  think,  able  to  vindicate  its  epistemological 
validity.  He  regards  Biran's  deduction  of  the  category  of  causal- 
ity as  a  successful  answer  to  Hume's  logical  criticism,  but  con- 
cludes "  that  the  French  spiritualist  has  limited  far  too  narrowly 
the  sources  from  which  the  causal  concept  can  be  derived."  We 
have  as  clear  an  evidence  of  "  the  spontaneous  activity  of  the 
sotil  upon  idea  process,  as  we  have  of  the  influence  of  "  the  will 
on  the  physical  organism."  "Psychical  causality"  should  be 
placed  at  least  on  a  par  with  "muscular  effort."  2  Lang  distin- 
guishes the  causal  law,  "everything  in  the  \vorld  has  its  cause," 
from  the  causal  principle,  "the  existence  and  unchangeableness 
of  natural  law."  "  Biran  seems  to  have  felt  these  difficulties," 
since  he  thought  that  "  our  belief  in  the  unchangeability  of 
natural  law  rested  "  on  the  fact  that  "  we  must  necessarily  view 
natural  forces  after  the  analogy  of  the  I  as  incorporeal  and  con- 
sequently unchangeable."  3 

Maine  de  Biran  finds  that  unity  and  identity,  as  well  as  cause, 
are  included  in  the  primitive  fact.  From  this  original  source 
they  are  extended  by  a  kind  of  generalization  to  the  phenomenal 
objects  of  external  nature.  The  self  perceives  itself  in  effort,  as 
constantly  of  the  same  unitary  form.  From  the  single  self  are 
derived  the  ideas  of  the  unity  of  substance,  cause,  and  finite  exis- 
tence. The  objects  of  nature  resist  the  one  will,  or  effort,  and 
can  only  be  conceived  in  relation  to  that  fundamental  unity.  In 
a  purely  sensitive  existence  all  is  simultaneous.  But  it  is  the  na- 
ture of  the  motor  force,  which  constitutes  the  self,  to  act  only  in 
an  order  of  succession,  that  is,  to  be  a  single  act  of  perception  at 

1  Cf.  CEuvres  inedifes,  Vol.  I,  p.  265. 

2  Maine  de  Biran  und  die  neuere  Philosophie,  pp.  59-62. 
.      3  fbid.,  pp.  42-44. 


36  MAINE    DE    BIRAX'S    PHILOSOPHY 

a  time,  for  the  very  reason  that  it  is  simple.  That  which  is  simul- 
taneous in  sensation  becomes  successive  in  thought.  But  all 
succession  must  have  a  first  term,  and  this  leads  to  the  question 
of  the  origin  of  personality.  Identity,  like  substance,  is  based 
on  the  primitive  fact  of  consciousness  and  has  a  double  original 
type,  in  the  subject  and  in  the  resistance  of  effort.  Personality 
cannot  be  established  on  either  of  the  terms  taken  alone. 

According  to  Maine  de  Biran,  Locke  did  not  distinguish 
sharply  enough  the  true  personal  identity  which  applies  to  the 
subject  and  to  immediate  perception,  from  the  identity  of  an  ob- 
ject of  repeated  perceptions  and  from  soul  substance.  The  two 
latter  conceptions  are  derived  from  the  first  and  should  not  be 
confused  with  it.  The  identity  of  soul  substance  is  deduced 
from  the  identity  of  consciousness  ;  therefore  the  question  whether 
personal  identity  can  change  while  the  soul  substance  remains 
the  same  is  unnecessary.1 

Freedom  is  another  ultimate  idea  which  depends  for  its  origin 
and  validity  on  the  nature  of  the  self.  Maine  de  Biran  says  : 
"  Freedom  considered  as  the  feeling  of  a  power  in  exercise  pre- 
supposes the  reality  of  that  power,  as  the  mere  feeling  of  our 
existence  proves  to  us  the  reality  of  that  existence."  2  Muscular 
sensation  can  become  active,  determined  by  the  will,  and  passive, 
influenced  by  a  force  beyond  the  self.  In  this  alternation  in  the 
fact  of  consciousness,  we  have  the  type  of  the  ideas  of  freedom 
and  necessity.  To  call  freedom  in  question  is  to  doubt  the  feel- 
ing of  the  self.  Biran  thinks  that  any  one  could  deny  his 
own  existence  as  well  as  his  freedom.  Erroneous  opinions  in 
regard  to  freedom  are  occasioned  by  a  confusion  between  desire 
and  will.  He  defines  the  relation  as  follows  :  "  Will  is  circum- 
scribed by  the  same  limits  as  power,"  "  desire,  on  the  contrary, 
begins  where  power  ends  and  includes  all  the  field  of  our  pas- 
sivity." A  further  cause  of  error  in  this  connection,  according 
to  Biran,  is  a  very  strong  tendency  toward  the  unconditioned,  that 
is,  a  substitution  of  reasoning  based  upon  the  absolute  nature  of 

1  Cf.  (Euvres  incdites,  Vol.  I,  pp.  279-280. 

2  Ibid.,  Vol.  I,  p.  291. 

3  Ibid.,  Vol.  I,  p.  290. 


DEDUCTION  OF  THE  CATEGORIES  37 

substances  for  the  evidence  of  the  primitive  fact  of  consciousness 
found  by  introspection. 

Cousin  shows  very  clearly  the  difficulties  in  this  derivation  of 
freedom  from  the  perception  of  muscular  activity.  "  The  theory 
of  Maine  de  Biran  considers  the  free  act  only  in  its  external  mani- 
festation, in  a  remarkable  fact  without  doubt,  but  which  itself  sup- 
poses the  fact  quite  as  profound  and  intimate,  the  fact  of  willing 
with  its  immediate  and  proper  affect.  Here,  in  my  opinion,  is  the 
primitive  type  of  liberty.  .  .  .  When  we  seek  freedom  in  an  act, 
we  may  be  deceived  in  two  ways :  either  we  seek  it  in  the  intel- 
lectual element  of  the  act,  the  consciousness  of  the  motives,  the 
deliberation,  the  preference,  the  choice,  and  then  we  cannot  find 
it ;  for  it  is  evident  that  the  different  motives  .  .  .  command  the 
intelligence.  Or  we  seek  liberty  in  the  physical  element  of  the 
act,  and  we  do  not  find  it  there  at  least  constantly,  and  we  are 
tempted  to  conclude  that  liberty  is  but  an  accident."  l 

Maine  de  Biran  distinguishes  the  ideas  of  reflection,  substance, 
force,  unity,  and  identity  from  abstract  ideas  in  the  purely  logical 
sense  of  general  notions.  All  general  ideas  are  abstract,  but  not 
all  abstract  notions  are  general  ideas.  In  analyzing  a  concrete 
totality  into  its  elementary  parts,  the  attention  isolates  elements 
which  really  exist  only  in  the  totality.  But  in  the  case  of  gen- 
eralizations or  comparison  of  different  objects,  the  results  are 
qualities  which  are  common  to  the  objects.  The  ideas  of  reflec- 
tion differ  both  from  the  products  of  abstraction  by  the  attention 
and  from  the  products  of  abstraction  and  comparison.  The  ideas 
of  reflection  are  individual  and  simple  while  the  logical  abstrac- 
tions are  collective.  The  general  notions  become  less  real  and 
individual  as  they  are  extended  to  a  greater  number  of  objects  ; 
while  the  ideas  of  reflection  approach  nearer  to  real  unity  as 
they  become  more  abstract.  Logical  abstractions  have  a  purely 
nominal  value ;  but  the  abstract  ideas  of  reflection  have  a  real 
value  independent  of  any  external  application.  Biran  con- 
cludes that  we  should  analyze  the  ultimate  principles  of  science, 
if  they  are  not  founded  upon  facts  of  consciousness.  When,  on 
the  contrary,  the  simple  ideas  of  reflection  are  made  the  basis  of 

1  Cousin,  History  of  Modern  Philosophy,  Vol.  Ill,  Lecture  XXV. 


38  MAINE  DE  BIRAN'S  PHILOSOPHY 

science,  there  is  no  opportunity  for  analysis.  Science  did  not 
exist  before  the  self;  and  analysis  cannot  extend  beyond  the  self. 
Metaphysics  will  be  the  real  positive  science  of  inner  phenomena 
and  of  all  that  can  be  deduced  from  these  phenomena,  provided 
it  starts  with  the  fact  of  consciousness  as  a  primitive  "  given,"  to 
be  established  but  not  to  be  explained  or  analyzed.  It  will  be  an 
abstract  science  lost  in  definitions  and  hypotheses  without  begin- 
ning or  end,  if  it  starts  from  general  principles  and  attempts  to 
establish  science  beyond  all  actual  existence.1 

Maine  de  Biran  very  naturally  refers  to  Locke's  treatment  of 
general  ideas.  Empiricism  tends  to  regard  all  concepts  as  hav- 
ing only  a  logical  value  ;  Locke,  however,  distinguished  between 
mixed  modes  which  are  mere  combinations  of  ideas,  and  general 
ideas  which  necessarily  admit  of  a  real  essence.  Locke  never- 
theless "  neglects  too  much  the  inner  model  which  the  mind 
must  consult  in  forming"  the  ideas.2  The  model  is  not  the  less 
real  because  it  is  not  external. 

Such  in  outline  is  Maine  de  Biran's  metaphysics  which  is  based 
upon  the  fact  of  inner  experience,  the  direct  perception  of  the 
self,  and  the  consequent  extension  of  the  characteristics  of  the 
primitive  fact  to  cover  the  regulative  principles  of  experience. 
The. immediate  problem  is  to  consider  how  far  these  principles 
derived  from  psychological  analysis  can  be  regarded  as  furnishing 
an  exhaustive  account  of  the  epistemological  categories  with 
which  they  are  associated.  Sir  William  Hamilton  shows  very 
conclusively  that  the  perception  of  activity  fails  to  account  for  the 
necessary  character  of  the  judgment  of  causality.  After  criticiz- 
ing the  subjective  perception  of  causal  efficiency  on  the  ground 
that  there  is  no  consciousness  of  causal  connection  between  voli- 
tion and  motion,  he  says  :  "  Admitting  that  causation  were  cog- 
nizable, and  that  perception  and  self-consciousness  were  competent 
to  its  apprehension,  still  as  these  faculties  could  only  take  note  of 
individual  causations,  we  should  be  wholly  unable,  out  of  such 
empirical  acts,  to  evolve  the  quality  of  necessity  and  universality 
by  which  this  notion  is  distinguished.  Admitting  that  we  had 

1  Cf.   (Euvres  inedites,  Vol.  I,  p.  305. 
*  Ibid.,  Vol.  II,  pp.  I §4- 1 85. 


DEDUCTION    OF    THE    CATEGORIES  39 

really  observed  the  agency  of  any  number  of  causes,  still  this 
would  not  explain  to  us,  how  we  are  unable  to  think  a  manifesta- 
tion of  existence  without  thinking  it  as  an  effect.  Our  internal 
experience,  especially  in  the  relations  of  our  volitions  to  their . 
effects,  may  be  useful  in  giving  us  a  clearer  notion  of  causality ; 
but  it  is  altogether  incompetent  to  account  for  what  there  is  in  it 
of  the  quality  of  necessity."  l  Kiihtmann  substantially  agrees 
with  Hamilton's  second  criticism.  While  he  thinks  that  Biran 
was  right  in  deriving  "  the  objective  concept  of  force  from  the 
subjective  process  "  2  of  volition,  he  maintains  that  "  the  develop- 
ment of  the  concept  of  causality,  that  every  change  (effect)  neces- 
sarily postulates  another  (change)  (cause)  for  its  genesis,  belongs 
to  the  evolution  of  language  and  abstract  thought."3 

In  this  connection  we  may  recall  the  historical  relations  of 
Maine  de  Biran.  It  was  his  belief  that  he  had  established  phi- 
losophy on  a  factual  ground.  He  was  an  empiricist,  the  intel- 
lectual descendant  of  Locke  and  Condillac,  and  like  his  prede- 
cessors is  primarily  an  epistemologist  rather  than  an  ontologist. 
And  it  is  clearly  from  the  epistemological,  and  not  from  the  onto- 
logical,  point  of  view  that  he  treats  the  concepts  of  substance  and 
causality.  As  Locke  assumed  a  material  substrate  in  which  the 
qualities  of  sensation  inhere,  and  as  Condillac  had  a  stimulus 
which  was  beyond  consciousness  and  never  completely  included 
in  it,  so  Biran  found  a  resistance  to  the  will,  which  ultimately 
remained  an  extra-conscious  datum.  This  is  one  of  the  proto- 
types of  the  idea  of  substance,  the  other  is  found  in  the  volitional 
subject.  There  is  for  Maine  de  Biran,  as  for  Locke  and  Condillac, 
a  datum  outside  consciousness  which  is  assumed  as  a  condition  of 
volitional  activity.  For  this  reason  he  did  not  find  it  necessary 
to  regard  the  will  as  always  active.  The  mind  does  not  always 
think.  In  an  ontological  sense  the  will  is  not  ultimate,  it  is 
merely  the  first  principle  of  consciousness.  \The  simple  sentient 
life  to  which  the  will  is  always  related,  and  in  which  it  ^neets 
with  a  reality  other  than  itself,  becomes  more  prominent  in  the 
psychology.  That  is  the  part  of  Maine  de  Biran' s  work  which 

1  Lectures,  Vol.  II,  p.  392. 

2  Maine  de  Biran,  p.  172. 
8  Ibid.,  p.  177. 


4O  MAINE    DE    BIRANS    PHILOSOPHY 

we  have  next  to  consider.  The  philosopher  would  be  the  first  to 
emphasize  the  importance  of  the  resistence  which  the  will  meets. 
He  made  no  attempt  to  reach  a  fundamental  unity ;  but  very  ex- 
plicitly maintained  that  the  primitive  fact  of  consciousness  was 
based  upon  a  relation  which  involved  two  terms.  Life,  which  is 
simple  in  animality,  the  merely  sentient  experience,  becomes  dual 
in  humanity,  that  is,  in  conscious  experience.1 

1  Cf.  CEuvres  inedites,  Vol.  II,  p.  4. 


SECTION    VI. 

DIVISIONS  OF  THE  PSYCHOLOGY. 

We  now  turn  to  the  treatment  of  psychology  which  occupies 
the  larger  part  of  the  chief  work.  According  to  Maine  de  Biran, 
an  account  of  the  principles  of  consciousness,  even  when  their 
relation  is  shown  to  the  primitive  fact  of  voluntary  effort,  is  not 
an  exhaustive  statement  of  the  characteristics  of  human  nature. 
Before  the  life  of  relation  begins,  there  are  impressions  and  in- 
stinctive movements  coordinated  with  the  impressions,  and  there 
is  also,  at  least,  a  slight  degree  of  pleasure  and  pain.  Life  in- 
volves the  fact  that  the  organism  is  affected  either  pleasantly  or 
unpleasantly.  Affections  are  the  simple  modes  of  pleasure  and 
pain  which  make  up  a  life  purely  sentient,  and  out  of  relation  to 
self  or  to  objective  existences. ;  There  is  a  class  of  passive  facul- 
ties which  are  subordinate  to  and  developed  with  the  affections. 
These  constitute  the  animal  nature,  but  since  man  is  an  active 
self  as  well  as  a  sentient  animal,  they  make  up  only  one  element 
of  human  nature.  They  differ  essentially  from  the  active  facul- 
ties of  the  intelligent  being,  yet  in  man  the  two  elements  are 
closely  united  and  constantly  exercise  an  influence  on  each  other. 
The  factors  are  combined  in  a  manner  which  varies  according 
to  the  degree  of  development  which  the  relational  life  has 
attained.  In  order  to  make  his  method  clear,  Biran  attempts 
to  isolate  the  two  kinds  of  elements  in  human  nature.  By  a  pre- 
liminary analysis  he  hopes  to  gain  a  higher  stage  of  perfection  in 
his  account  of  the  psychological  compounds.  When  the  elements 
are  once  abstractly  isolated,  it  is  possible  to  understand  the  part 
that  each  plays  in  the  phenomena  of  the  mental  life.  (By  a  study 
of  the  relation  of  the  active  subject  to  the  purely  affective  life, 
which  gives  the  first  real  content  to  the  act  of  will,  Biran  con- 
cluded that  the  phenomena  of  feeling,  sensation,  perception, 
judgment,  volition,  etc.,  could  be  classified  in  four  systems. 
According  to  him  the  classification  is  not  to  represent  logical 


42  MAINE    DE    BIRAN  S    PHILOSOPHY 

abstractions,  it  is  not  founded  on  vague  analogies,  but  is  depen- 
dent on  real  factual  distinctions. 

The  first,  or  affective,  system  has  to  do  with  the  simple  modes 
of  passive  sensibility.  Under  this  head  there  is  an  analysis  of 
the  various  kinds  of  sensation  considered  with  reference  to  simple 
affective  impressions  which  they  are  capable  of  receiving,  and 
with  reference  to  the  forms  of  stimulus  which  are  correlated  with 
their  specific  sensibility,  but  without  regard  to  effort  or  the  activity 
of  the  self. 

In  the  second,  or  sensitive  system,  the  personality  is  consti- 
tuted by  active  effort.  Our  subject  is  no  longer  a  merely  sentient 
being  which  simply  lives,  that  is,  is  affected  without  knowing  its 
own  life.  An  active  self  is  united  to  the  passive,  sentient  organ- 
ism. The  self  perceives  that  it  is  in  relation  to  the  different  sen- 
sible modifications  and  retains  its  identity  while  the  modifications 
change.  Nevertheless,  at  this  stage,  the  self  is  merely  the  spec- 
tator of  passive  modes  which  are  produced  in  the  living  organism 
without  the  active  exercise  of  its  own  force.  Yet  the  second 
system  differs  essentially  from  the  first.  The  self  feels  the  affec- 
tive impressions,  it  localizes  them  in  particular  organs,  and  attrib- 
utes them  to  causes  outside  itself.  That  is,  certain  relations  of 
causality  which  the  affections  do  not  primarily  include  are  asso- 
ciated with  them,  and  the  various  modifications  are  no  longer 
mere  physiological  facts  ;  they  are  modifications  of  a  self.  Sen- 
sations are  the  "  first  composite  modes."  "  The  self  is  united  to 
sensible  impressions  and  participates  as  an  interested  spectator, 
without  exercising  its  own  characteristic  activity."  1  This  sensi- 
tive system  is  the  first  in  the  order  of  knowledge,  but  the  second 
in  the  order  of  progress  by  which  the  sensitive  and  motor  being 
raises  itself  from  a  purely  affective  state  to  personality  and  the 
various  degrees  of  knowledge. 

The  third  or  perceptive  system  includes  modes  to  which  the 
self  is  more  closely  related  and  in  which  it  enters  as  an  active 
participant.  This  relation  requires  that  the  organ  which  receives 
the  impression  be  under  the  control  of  motor  force.  Although 
the  force  is  still  subordinate  to  the  impression,  it  gives  the  sensa- 
1  op.  tit.,  Vol.  II,  P.  6. 


DIVISIONS    OF    THE    PSYCHOLOGY  43 

tion  the  form  of  a  unity  in  multiplicity.  A  perception  is  an  im- 
pression in  which  the  self  participates  by  an  action  which  is  sub- 
sequent to  the  effect  of  the  external  object.  Biran  defines  this 
third  system  as  follows  :  "The  perceptive  system  includes  all  the 
phenomena  arising  from  the  action  of  sensible  objects  combined 
with  that  of  a  will,  which  is  still  subordinate  to  the  impressions 
that  occasion  or  motive  its  first  exercise."  l 

In  the  fourth  system,  the  self  is  united  with  modes  which  are 
characteristically  active.  They  cannot  begin  or  persist  without 
an  express  act  of  will.  The  object  or  external  agent  is  here  sub- 
ordinate ;  the  impression  is  dependent  upon  activity  which  is  voli- 
tionally  determined.  The  active  modes  are  homogeneous  with 
the  primitive  constitution  of  the  personality.  They  are  only  an 
extension  of  effort ;  but  they  refer  to  some  foreign  resistance  or 
to  results  which  are  perfectly  distinct  in  consciousness  from  the 
cause  which  produces  them.  Here  the  will  has,  at  the  same 
time,  immediate  apperception  of  the  cause  and  intuition  of  the 
effect.  The  basis  of  the  fourth  system  is  thus  :  "  The  act  of  re- 
flection joined  with  perception,  or  the  fact  of  inner  experience 
(sens  intime]  with  the  objective  phenomena."  2 

(The  systems  just  outlined  serve  as  the  general  plan  for  Maine 
de  Biran' s  psychology.  In  his  opinion  the  divisions  have  a  real 
basis  in  fact,  but  in  reality  they  are  logical  rather  than  introspec- 
tive distinctions.  The  whole  construction  depends  upon  the  differ- 
ent ratios  in  which  conscious  activity  is  related  to  the  underlying 
affective  life.  The  affective  life  itself,  however,  as  already  noted, 
is  extraneous  to  consciousness.  It  is  not  a  fact  in  the  sense  of  a 
primitive  fact,  but  of  a  fact  for  an  other,  an  outside  observer.  In 
this  respect  Biran's  psychology  may  be  regarded  as  based  upon 
logical  abstraction. 

We  shall  consider  his  psychology  more  in  detail  by  referring  to 
his  treatment  of  each  of  the  four  systems.  It  is  in  this  connection 
that  he  shows  the  part  that  the  will  actually  plays  in  his  phi- 
losophy. 

i  Op.  cit.,  Vol.  II,  p.  8. 
*Ibid.,  Vol.  II,  p.  9. 


SECTION   VII. 

AFFECTIVE  SYSTEM. 

Simple  affection  is  the  element  that  is  left  of  a  complete  sensa- 
tion when  we  abstract  the  self,  together  with  the  forms  of  space 
and  time  and  the  idea  of  causality.  Affection,  however,  is  not 
regarded  as  an  abstraction,  but  as  a  real  mode  which  makes  up 
all  our  existence  at  the  first  and  at  all  other  times  when  the  intel- 
lect becomes  entirely  inactive,  as  in  sleep,  or  when  the  self  is 
completely  lost  in  sense  impressions. l  Lower  forms  of  life  always 
remain  at  the  affective  stage.  The  beginning  of  the  capacity  to 
be  affected  is  possessed  by  the  simplest  types  of  organic  life  ;  and 
the  higher  animals  can  be  regarded  as  a  multitude  of  lives  united 
into  a  single  life,  or  as  a  multitude  of  constituent  affections  united 
into  a  single  result.  If  the  living  being  is  considered  as  an  ag- 
gregate, and  we  abstract  from  individual  unity,  two  features  can 
be  distinguished  in  an  impression  made  on  any  particular  organ  ; 
first,  the  modification  which  that  particular  organ  undergoes,  and 
secondly,  the  modification  of  the  entire  sensitive  system.  The 
relative  importance  of  these  two  modifications  constitutes  the  af- 
fection as  painful  or  pleasant  in  itself,  that  is,  quite  apart  from 
comparison  or  even  from  consciousness.  If  the  particular  modi- 
fication is  relatively  much  stronger  than  the  general  modification, 
the  affection  is  painful,  if  not,  it  is  pleasant.  The  painful  or  pleas- 
ant impression  sets  up  movements  which  respectively  tend  to  set 
aside  or  to  maintain  the  impression. 

At  the  beginning  there  is  a  vague  feeling  of  life  without  per- 
sonality. Life  is  the  condition  of  sentiency.  The  impressions, 
whether  they  are  of  organic  or  of  external  origin,  are  confused 
with  the  general  feeling  of  life,  and  for  a  long  time  retain  this  in- 
definite character.  But  with  the  further  development  of  life  the 
general  excitatory  character  of  the  impressions  diminishes  and  the 
particular  affections  can  manifest  themselves.  Thus  the  materials 

1  Cf.  (Euvres  philosoph iques,  Vol.  3,  pp.  239-240. 

44 


AFFECTIVE   SYSTEM  45 

of  distinct  perception  are  separated  and  the  personal  element  alone 
is  wanting  to  complete  the  first  phenomenon  of  external  represen- 
tation. The  impressions  derived  from  the  different  sense  organs 
differ  in  the  degree  of  ease  with  which  they  lend  themselves  to 
association  with  the  self.  Some  always  preserve  more  or  less 
the  character  of  general  affections  and  thus  remain  somewhat  con- 
fused ;  others  are  more  distinct  and  more  disposed  by  nature  to 
be  localized  or  coordinated  with  their  particular  sense  organs. 
The  latter  class  easily  admits  the  forms  of  space  and  time. 

In  reference  to  the  sense  of  touch,  Maine  de  Biran  says,  that 
when  we  abstract  effort  from  the  affections,  they  reduce  to  an 
absolutely  passive  character  and  are  deprived  of  all  perceptive 
elements,  of  all  form  of  space  and  time  and  of  all  idea  of  cause 
or  substance.  The  affections  correlated  with  the  organs  of  taste 
and  smell  are  very  slow  to  differentiate  themselves  from  the  gen- 
eral affective  system  and  even  then  tend  to  revert  to  a  confused 
condition.  But  in  the  visual  and  auditory  affections  there  are 
characteristics  which  promote  the  association  of  the  passive  affec- 
tions with  the  self.  These  immediate  passive  intuitions  are,  in 
the  case  of  vision,  a  natural  coordination  of  colors  and  the  "  vibra- 
tory" character  in  virtue  of  which  images  are  prolonged  and  re- 
produced, and  in  the  case  of  audition,  the  simultaneous  and  suc- 
cessive distinctions  of  tones.  In  both  instances  the  passive  intui- 
tions are  due  to  the  anatomical  structure  of  the  sense  organs.1 

Every  modification  leaves  a  trace  in  the  organism,  and  thus 
influences  later  modes  of  existence.  Yet  there  is  no  memory  at 
the  affective  stage,  since  there  is  no  consciousness.  The  feelings 
of  attraction  or  repulsion,  which  become  explicit  in  the  conscious 
state,  are  often  the  results  of  affective  modifications  which  the 
living  being  has  sustained  in  a  preconscious  state. 2  The  intui- 
tions also  leave  images  which  are  reproduced  spontaneously  either 
in  their  original  order  or  in  some  accidental  arrangement.  And 
the  movements  of  simple  reaction  to  stimulus  leave  after  them 
tendencies  from  which  spontaneous  movements  arise.  Spontane- 
ous movements  are  accompanied  by  a  sensation  of  a  unique  kind. 

1  Cf.  (Euvres  intdites,  Vol.  II,  pp.  25-31. 

2  Cf.  ibid.,  Vol.  II,  p.  35. 


46  MAINE  DE  BIRAN'S  PHILOSOPHY 

In  its  origin  this  sensation  is  not  attended  by  the  feeling  of  motor 
force  ;  but  that  feeling  is  immediately  related  to  it.  At  this  point 
the  feeling  of  effort  or  of  the  self  arises.  Thus  sensation  and  af- 
fection are  for  Maine  de  Biran  the  means  of  developing  active 
faculties,  but  they  are  not  transformed  into  faculties  of  a  higher 
order. l 

The  affective  system  just  outlined  is  the  foundation  on  which 
psychology  is  developed  rather  than  a  part  of  the  science  itself. 
With  the  sensitive  system  in  the  next  section  we  have  the  begin- 
ning of  the  psychology  in  the  strict  sense  of  the  term.  The  sharp 
distinction  between  the  merely  affective  life  and  consciousness  is 
also  brought  out  in  the  work  Division  des  faits  psychologiques  et 
physiologiques.  Biran  says:  "The  self  is  primitive  .  .  .  there 
is  nothing  anterior  or  superior  to  it  in  the  order  of  knowledge."  2 
In  another  place  he  speaks  of  the  line  "  which  separates  forever 
the  physical  from  the  moral  sciences,  and  especially  the  science 
of  living  and  sentient  organisms,  physiology,  from  the  inner  science 
of  beings  which  are  intelligent  and  active,  moral  and  free,  psy- 
chology or  ethics."  3 

1  Cf.  op.  at.,  Vol.  II,  p.  39. 

2  (Euvres philosophiques,  Vol.  Ill,  p.  174. 
*Jbid.,  Vol.  Ill,  p.  144. 


SECTION    VIII. 

SENSITIVE  SYSTEM. 

The  second,  or  sensitive  system,  is  constituted  by  the  simple 
union  of  the  self  with  the  phenomena  of  the  first  system,  already 
described.  When  the  subject  of  effort  distinguishes  itself  from 
the  body  as  a  whole,  or  the  various  parts  of  the  body  that  are 
subject  to  the  control  of  will,  there  is  a  natural  foundation  for 
judgment.  This  is  the  beginning  of  the  relational  life.  Maine 
de  Biran  here  follows  the  general  scheme  of  classification  which 
he  adopted  in  the  first  system.  The  self  is  simply  associated 
with  impressions  and  invests  them  with  the  forms  of  space 
and  time  ;  it  becomes  a  spectator  without  producing  changes  by 
an  express  act.  By  this  simple  union  of  the  self  with  the  affec- 
tions we  have  affective  sensations,  by  the  union  of  the  self  with 
intuitions,  representative  sensations,  and  by  the  union  of  the  self 
with  those  effects  of  affections  and  intuitions  on  the  organism, 
memory. 

To  begin  with  the  union  of  the  self  and  the  simple  affections, 
we  find  that  the  resulting  affective  sensations  are  of  two  kinds, 
particular  or  general,  according  as  they  are,  or  are  not,  localized 
in  the  body.  In  the  latter  case  the  feeling  of  effort  tends  to  be 
confused  or  absorbed  in  the  affective  sensation  ;  in  .the  former 
case  impression  and  resistance  to  effort  are  felt  as  occupying  the 
same  place,  but  are  not  confused. 

The  intuitions  differ  from  the  affections  in  the  fact  that  they 
become  more  distinct  through  continued  repetition.  The  self, 
moreover,  is  united  with  them  in  a  particular  way.  They  can 
never  obscure  the  feeling  of  the  self,  and  when  united  with  it  the 
relation  is  preserved  with  more  constancy  and  uniformity  than  in 
the  former  case.  They  also  share  in  the  primitive  mode  of 
coordination  in  space.  The  self  from  its  very  origin  cannot  be 
separated  from  this  mode  ;  it  does  not,  however,  change  the  form 
of  the  intuition  but  receives  that  form  ready  made  from  laws  of 
the  organism  which  do  not  depend  upon  volition. 

47 


48  MAINE  DE  BIRAN'S  PHILOSOPHY 

There  are  three  kinds  of  memory  to  be  distinguished,  personal, 
modal,  and  objective.  The  first  is  a  necessary  condition  of  the 
other  two.  In  fact,  it  is  the  simple  union  of  the  sense  of  effort 
with  the  organism.  The  sense  of  effort  which  does  not  result  in 
perception,  but  only  extends  to  the  voluntary  muscles,  consti- 
tutes mere  consciousness  and  also  the  duration  of  the  self,  or 
personal  identity,  that  makes  memory  possible.  An  examination 
of  the  waking  consciousness  shows  that  the  subject  of  effort 
recognizes  immediately  his  identity,  his  continued  duration  ;  he 
senses  that  he  is  the  same  that  he  was  before  sleep.  No  special 
impression  to  motive  distinct  memories,  nor  any  determinate  rela- 
tion between  the  present  and  past  time  is  necessary  in  order  to 
bring  about  the  feeling  of  identity.  For  these  reasons  Maine  de 
Biran  concludes  that  personal  identity  is  sensed  independently  of 
affections,  or  of  the  passive  intuitions  of  sensibility  ;  that  identity, 
or  the  duration  of  our  own  personal  existence,  is  the  cause  of 
objective  memory,  not  the  result  as  Locke  maintained  ; [  and 
that  the  feeling  of  uniform  duration  is  the  necessary  antecedent 
of  the  idea  of  time.  A  very  low  degree  of  self-activity  is  suffi- 
cient to  give  us  the  idea  of  personal  identity  and  the  idea  of  dura- 
tion. But  some  degree  of  activity  is  indispensable.  The  idea  of 
self  and  the  idea  of  time  do  not  result  either  from  the  play  of 
merely  external  impressions  on  the  organism  or  from  the  pure 
cognition  of  external  relations. 

Modal  memory  refers  to  the  quality  of  the  modification  which 
the  self  sustains.  It  is  not  inherent  in  simple  affections,  but  only 
in  sensations  which  are  reproduced  in  a  part  of  the  body  where 
they  have  previously  been  localized.  These  sensations  are  not 
recognized  in  their  intensity  but  only  in  their  general  nature. 

In  objective  memory,  it  is  no  longer  merely  our  own  being 
which  we  recognize,  either  immediately  or  in  an  internally  re- 
peated modification  ;  we  recognize  or  judge  that  an  external  rep- 
resentation is  similar  to  itself,  by  correlating  with  it  our  own 
sense  of  duration.  We  recognize  the  resemblance  of  an  actual 
intuition,  with  an  image  which  is  the  result  of  a  previous  intui- 
tion. The  element  of  identity  depends  upon  personal  memory, 

1  Cf.  Essay  Concerning  Human  Understanding,  II,  Ch.  XXVII,  §  II. 


SENSITIVE    SYSTEM  49 

while  the  element  of  resemblance,  which  is  also  essential  to  objec- 
tive memory,  depends  upon  external  representation. 

The  most  important  fact  to  be  noted  concerning  the  sensitive 
system  is  that  the  self,  when  it  unites  with  the  simple  modes  of 
affection  and  intuition,  invests  them  with  the  forms,  which  belong 
originally  to  it,  and  which  are  the  conditions  of  its  existence. 
The  consequence  is  that  all  conscious  phenomena  necessarily  in- 
volve the  idea  of  cause.  "  That  cause  is  self  if  the  mode  is  active 
or  perceived  as  the  actual  result  of  a  voluntary  effort ;  it  is  not- 
self,  if  it  is  a  passive  impression  sensed  as  opposed  to  that  effort, 
or  independent  of  all  exercise  of  the  will."  1  "  The  belief  in  a 
cause,  not-self,  differs  essentially  from  the  knowledge  of  an  exter- 
nal object.  The  first  can  be  based  simply  on  a  sort  of  resistance 
to  even  the  vaguest  desire ;  the  second  rests  on  perceptible  re- 
sistance to  effort,  or  determinate  will.  "  2  In  this  connection  we 
have  to  remember  that  the  self  for  Biran  is  a  fact  of  experience, 
a  relation  discovered  by  introspection,  or  else  we  are  in  danger 
of  giving  his  system  too  idealistic  an  interpretation.  The  affec- 
tions united  to  belief,  or  the  vague  idea  of  a  productive  cause, 
take  the  character  of  relations  and  are  called  emotions. 

There  are  as  many  kinds  of  emotions  as  there  are  affections  as- 
sociated with  the  self;  but  they  can  be  divided  into  two  general 
classes,  emotions  of  love  and  emotions  of  hate.  The  first  in- 
cludes joy,  hope,  and  security,  according  as  the  desired  object 
conforms  to  our  wish,  or  probably  will  thus  conform,  or  is  believed 
to  be  in  our  control.  The  emotions  of  hate  are  sadness,  grief,  and 
fear.  In  sadness  we  believe  in  the  existence  of  a  cause  that  can 
affect  us  disagreeably.  In  grief  we  believe  that  we  cannot, 
escape,  and  in  fear,  that  we  probably  shall  not  escape  the  effects, 
of  the  object.  The  emotions  can  be  called  desires.  Desire  dif- 
fers essentially  from  need  or  want.  The  sentient  being  has 
need  of  all  impressions  which  tend  to  maintain  or  develop  its  ex- 
istence. And  on  that  principle  it  seeks  to  avoid  or  repel  all 
which  are  contrary  to  or  destructive  of  existence.  But  the  simple 
need  does  not  make  desire  until  it  is  joined  to  belief.  Voluntary 

1  CEuvres  inedites,  Vol.  II,  p.  67. 
*  Ibid.,  Vol.  II,  p.  68. 


5<D  MAINE    DE    BIRAN  S    PHILOSOPHY 

movement  may  result  from  the  influence  of  desire,  but  it  may 
also  be  contrary  to  desire.  In  this  respect  it  differs  from  instinc- 
tive movement  in  which  the  will  can  have  no  part. 

With  the  consideration  of  affective  sensation,  representative 
sensation,  memory,  and  emotion,  Biran  has  accounted  for  all  the 
classes  of  psychological  facts  which  consist  in  the  relation  of  the 
self  in  its  simplest  form,  mere  consciousness,  with  organic  life. 
In  the  next  section,  the  perceptive  system  will  include  facts  which 
involve  a  greater  prominence  of  the  self,  that  is,  a  more  active  will. 


SECTION    IX. 

PERCEPTIVE  SYSTEM. 

The  attention  is  the  basis  of  the  third  system  of  psychological 
facts,  and  it  is  only  because  attention  is  involved  that  the  phe- 
nomena of  the  perceptive  system  differ  from  those  of  the  sensitive 
system.  Attention  is  nothing  but  the  will  in  activity.  But  by 
this  activity  certain  psychological  modes  acquire  characters  which 
they  do  not  possess  merely  in  their  own  nature  and  as  subordi- 
nate to  the  laws  of  animal  sensibility.  Attention  is  a  degree  of 
effort  superior  to  that  involved  in  mere  consciousness,  that  is,  to 
the  degree  of  effort  which  renders  the  external  senses  capable  of 
perceiving  or  representing  confusedly  the  objects  that  stimulate 
them.  Here  the  effort  is  determined  by  an  express  will.  The 
perception  which  was  confused  at  first  is  isolated  from  all  the 
accompanying  impressions  that  tend  to  obscure  it.  The  attention 
refers  especially  to  the  representative  sensations  which  are  already 
coordinated  in  space  and  time.  It  does  not  exercise  any  direct 
influence  on  the  affective  impressions.  The  act  of  attention  does 
not  render  the  impressions  in  themselves  more  vivid,  but  fixes  the 
organs  that  are  subject  to  the  will,  on  the  object,  turns  them 
away  from  all  other  causes  of  impressions,  and  thus  renders  the 
object  relatively  more  clear. 

In  reference  to  the  connection  of  attention  with  the  particular 
sense  organs,  Maine  de  Biran  notes  that  attention  is  not  related  to 
impressions  of  tastes  and  odors  in  so  far  as  they  are  passively 
excited  or  received,  but  only  in  as  far  as  they,  depend  upon  vol- 
untary movement.  The  stimulus  which  sets  up  auditory  sensa- 
tions is  at  first  the  occasion  of  merely  affective  phenomena.  All 
distinct  perception  or  special  activity  of  the  attention  is  excluded. 
But  the  impressions  are  coordinated  in  time  ;  and  under  this  form 
of  intuition,  the  attention  is  able  to  give  them  a  character  of 
activity.  We  do  not  determine  what  we  shall  hear,  but  we  can 


52  MAINE    DE    BJRAN  S    PHILOSOPHY 

listen,  that  is,  give  to  the  sounds  a  more  or  less  sustained  atten- 
tion which  results  in  making  the  impressions  more  distinct.1 

Attention  is  a  very  important  factor  in  vision.  The  structure 
of  the  eye  is  peculiarly  adapted  to  movement  and  consequently 
is  under  direct  control  of  the  will.  The  result  for  consciousness 
is  very  different,  according  as  we  simply  see  an  object  or  observe 
it  with  "  active  regard."  2  In  the  first  case,  we  have  a  number  of 
confused  images  ;  in  the  second  case,  one  distinct  image.  With- 
out the  attention,  several  objects  are  sensed  passively  and  simul- 
taneously ;  with  the  attention,  there  are  rapid  movements  which 
coordinate  objects  into  one  whole.  In  this  connection  it  is  inter- 
esting to  notice  Maine  de  Biran's  account  of  the  effect  of  atten- 
tion on  after-images.  He  says,  that  he  has  often  tried  the  experi- 
ment of  looking  at  the  glass  of  a  well-lighted  window.  If  he 
looked  at  the  window  for  some  time,  while  dreaming  of  something 
else,  the  image  of  the  window  remained  in  his  eyes,  and  he  could 
see  it  almost  anywhere.  But  if  he  looked  at  the  window  atten- 
tively, with  a  view  of  preserving  the  image,  there  was  no  such 
result,  he  no  longer  had  an  image,  but  a  very  distinct  memory  of 
the  object.3  Attention  makes  the  colors  of  an  object  relatively 
more  clear  and  distinct.  This  effect,  however,  is  brought  about 
indirectly,  that  is,  the  influence  of  the  attention  is  limited  to  the 
voluntary  muscles,  and  does  not  extend  to  the  fibers  of  the  retina. 
Although  attentive  vision  always  proceeds  by  a  succession  of 
movements  and  is  thus  voluntary  in  principle,  the  movements 
become  so  rapid,  easy,  and  automatic  that  they  disappear  from 
consciousness.  The  sensitive  and  motor  being  participates  in 
vision,  but  does  not  realize,  even  in  the  most  distinct  percep- 
tion, its  own  active  part. 

The  sense  of  touch  is  especially  important  for  Maine  de  Biran, 
because  it  is  the  means  by  which  we  have  a  direct  knowledge  of 
the  not-self,  and  thus  is  the  basis  of  the  judgment  of  externality 
and  of  perception.  The  primitive  fact  of  effort  gives  us  a  knowl- 
edge of  our  own  body ;  but  the  degree  of  effort,  which  is  the 
condition  of  mere  consciousness  is  only  sufficient  to  suggest  an 

1  Cf.  op.  cit.,  Vol.  II,  pp.  91-94. 
*  Ibid.,  Vol.  II,  p.  97. 
s  Cf.  ibid.,  Vol.  II,  p.  97. 


PERCEPTIVE   SYSTEM  53 

indeterminate  not-self.  The  tactual  perceptions  abstracted  from 
resistance  furnish  unsupported  images.  It  is  the  association  of 
pressure  with  a  resistance,  sensed  simultaneously  in  the  same 
organ,  which  completes  the  relation  of  externality  and  establishes 
all  our  objective  knowledge.  The  pressure  alone,  or  the  resist- 
ance alone,  might  be  confused  with  an  increase  of  inertia  or  with 
the  resistance  of  the  human  body ;  but  the  union  of  a  pressure 
and  a  resistance,  which  is  opposed  and  not  proportional  to  effort 
gives  the  idea  of  an  external  body.  Neither  visual  nor  tactual 
representations  coordinated  in  space  can  give  the  idea  of  matter. 
The  idea  of  a  force  capable  of  resisting  voluntary  movement,  is 
needed  as  the  substantial  support  of  all  representations.  It  is  the 
center  around  which  the  sensations,  especially  those  of  pressure 
and  color  are  grouped.  In  virtue  of  the  association  of  the  idea 
of  cause  with  the  sensation  of  pressure,  that  primary  cause  which, 
as  the  not-self  of  effort,  is  indeterminate  becomes  positive  and 
determinate,  as  an  absolute  force.  The  absolute  force  differs  very 
essentially  from  simple  muscular  resistance  which  always  yields 
to  the  effort  that  constitutes  the  self.  The  latter  is  the  essence 
of  our  own  body,  the  immediate  limit  of  effort ;  the  former  is  the 
essence  of  external  bodies,  the  mediate  limit  of  effort.  The  exist- 
ence of  the  external  force  has  need  of  a  sign  in  order  to  manifest 
itself  in  consciousness  ;  and  the  natural  sign  is  the  representation 
of  tactual  extent.  All  the  sensations  which  suggest  the  idea  of 
an  indeterminate  not-self  can  be  construed  as  signs  of  that  idea  ; 
but  pressure,  which  is  associated  in  an  immediate  manner  with 
the  feeling  of  absolute  resistance,  is  in  a  particular  manner  the 
sign  of  the  existence  of  a  positive  and  determinate  cause.  Ex- 
ternal nature  is  known  directly  in  touch,  but  in  the  other  senses 
only  indirectly  and  as  they  are  coordinated  with  touch. 

After  considering  the  origin  of  the  judgment  of  externality, 
Maine  de  Biran  analyzes  the  various  forms  that  the  judgment 
takes.  In  the  primitive  sense  of  effort  we  have  a  localization  of 
the  organs  of  the  body.  This  can  be  effected  without  the  sense 
of  pressure,  that  is,  by  means  of  the  simple  resistance  which  the 
two  hands,  for  example,  could  offer  each  other,  even  if  they  had 
lost  all  sensation.  But  this  is  not  a  localization  by  representation 


54  MAINE  DE  BIRAN'S  PHILOSOPHY 

in  space,  it  is  a  mere  intuition  that  the  body  and  its  various  parts 
coexist  with  the  subject  of  effort. 

The  substantial  judgment  is  reached  by  abstracting  from  all  the 
passive  elements  in  the  sense  of  touch  and  supposing  a  single  organ, 
that  is,  by  referring  only  to  a  unitary  resistance  which  is  essen- 
tially relative  to  unitary  effort.  To  carry  out  this  conception,  it 
is  not  necessary  to  think  of  the  resistance  as  absolutely  unyield- 
ing unless  we  limit  the  subject  of  effort.  According  to  Maine  de 
Biran,  the  Stoical  idea  of  a  world-soul  was  founded  on  the  thought 
of  a  will  which  is  effective  in  the  whole  of  nature.  The  impor- 
tant thing,  however,  is  to  consider  the  nature  of  the  unitary  resist- 
ance which  opposes  the  will.  If  we  abstract  from  all  passive  im- 
pressions and  imagine  a  consciousness  made  up  entirely  of  effort, 
then  the  object  which  human  consciousness  attains  only  by  ab- 
straction, is  for  this  hypothetical  consciousness  an  immediate  per- 
ception, the  single  real  existence  related  to  the  self.  This  judg- 
ment is  substantial  because  it  is  the  basis  of  all  the  composite 
relations  of  conscious  life.  Owing  to  the  presence  of  sensations, 
we  never  have  the  true  unity  of  resistance  perfectly  simple  in  the 
mind  ;  but,  nevertheless,  it  forms  together  with  the  unity  of  effort, 
the  -double  unity,  which  is  the  foundation  of  all  that  we  perceive, 
within  or  without  ourselves.  On  this  simple  relation  rest  the 
primary  qualities  of  Locke  to  which  is  accorded  a  real  existence 
in  bodies.  The  qualities  constitute,  for  Biran,  the  essence  of 
bodies  and  they  are  attributed  to .  a  unitary  resistance.  But  he 
points  out  that  impenetrability  and  inertia  are  more  fundamental 
than  extent  and  motion. 

The  substantial  judgment  by  which  we  attribute  resistance  and 
impenetrability  to  body  carries  with  it  a  character  of  necessity  ; 
the  modal  judgment,  on  the  other  hand,  attributes  the  so-called 
secondary  qualities,  which  are  in  reality  simple  signs,  to  the  idea 
of  body.  It  is  an  unfortunate  misuse  of  language  to  call  affec- 
tive sensations,  secondary  qualities  of  bodies.  The  affective  sen- 
sation, that  is,  the  simple  union  of  the  self  with  the  affections,  is 
experienced  as  belonging  to  our  own  body ;  the  resistance  is  ex- 
perienced as  belonging  to  an  external  body.  They  are  not  con- 
fused, but  as  the  second  is  constantly  accompanied  by  the  first  a 


PERCEPTIVE   SYSTEM  55 

new  relation,  that  of  causality,  is  set  up  between  them.  The  £xer- 
cise  of  active  touch  does  not,  however,  constitute  the  relation  of 
causality  ;  but,  by  its  influence,  the  indeterminate  cause,  or  not- 
self,  the  object  of  belief,  becomes  determinate  as  a  positive  force 
which  can  modify  the  sensibility  in  a  particular  manner.1 

There  is  a  peculiar  kind  of  non-affective  impressions  that  oc- 
cupy an  intermediate  place  between  the  modes  of  our  sensibility 
and  the  modes  of  resistance.  These  impressions,  Maine  de  Biran 
describes  as  perceptions  united  to  the  relation  of  externality. 
They  are  the  subjects  of  his  objective  judgments.  These  per- 
ceptions are  naturally  projected  into  a  vague  space  from  which 
the  self  is  distinguished  in  consciousness.  They  neither  belong 
to  the  organs,  like  affective  sensations,  nor  are  they  at  first  local- 
ized in  the  resisting  continuum.  The  localization  indicated  in  the 
objective  judgment  is  the  product  of  the  experience  of  touch 
and  of  voluntary  movement.  The  perceptions  of  vision  and  pas- 
sive touch  which  are  given  at  first  in  a  two-dimensional  non- 
resisting  continuum  receive  a  definite  direction  and  distance  from 
the  practice  of  touch. 

Each  of  the  sensations,  abstracted  from  its  affective  character 
and  also  from  its  volitional  elements,  can  be  regarded  as  adapted 
to  an  aspect  of  the  sensible  world.  They  all  are  dependent 
upon  the  forms  of  sense,  but  none  the  less  are  caused  by  exter- 
nal bodies  which  are  their  permanent  subjects.  They  stand  in 
the  same  relation  to  the  primary  qualities  of  bodies  that  our 
affective  sensations  stand  to  the  will.  They  are  the  true  second- 
ary qualities. 

While  the  intuitions,  or  passive  perceptions,  leave  after  them 
images  which  are  proportional  to  the  original  impressions  ;  the 
active  perceptions,  which  are  dependent  upon  the  attention,  leave 
representative  ideas  that  share  in  their  active  nature.  The  intel- 
lectual operations  which  refer  only  accidentally  to  the  passive 
impressions  are  always  involved  in  active  perception.  The  atten- 
tion is  not  related  in  the  same  manner  to  all  the  senses  ;  and 
consequently  there  is  the  problem  of  determining  the  relation  of 
the  various  active  faculties,  memory,  judgment,  and  comparison, 
1  Cf.  op.  dt.,  Vol.  II,  pp.  130-131. 


56  MAINE  DE  BIRAN'S  PHILOSOPHY 

considered  as  consecutive  to  the  active  exercise  of  vision  and 
touch. 

The  self  can  revive  only  what  it  has  contributed  to  the  im- 
pressions. In  the  case  of  vision  the  sphere  of  voluntary  activity 
is  limited  to  an  attention  successively  directed  to  the  various 
parts  of  the  field  already  presented  in  passive  vision.  But  in  the 
case  of  touch,  by  a  series  of  movements  to  each  of  which  cor- 
responds a  memory,  the  subject  creates  a  unitary  resistance. 
Here  the  associations  are  voluntary,  as  distinguished  from  the 
accidental  associations  of  passive  memory  (the  memory  described 
under  the  sensitive  system  *).  The  visual  images  precede  and 
complicate  the  recall  of  the  forms,  but  the  sense  of  touch  gives 
us  the  true  notion  of  forms.  On  the  exercise  of  this  active  touch 
is  founded  the  act  of  memory,  in  the  strict  meaning  of  the  term, 
"which  is  nothing  but  the  repetition  of  the  simple  judgment  of 
externality  originally  associated  and  repeated  with  each  impres- 
sion." 2 

At  this  stage  we  have  Maine  de  Biran's  transition  from  atten- 
tion through  comparison  and  generalization  to  the  unifying  func- 
tion of  intelligence.  Comparison  is  not  absolutely  different  from 
attention,  but  is  an  immediate  result  of  the  activity  of  attention. 
Perception  is  always  unitary,  like  attention,  and  consequently  we 
never  can  compare  two  perceptions,  but  only  one  perception 
with  the  trace  left  by  another  impression.3  If  judgment  is  defined 
as  the  comparison  of  two  ideas,  the  idea  must  mean  more  than  an 
image.  The  idea  must  really  involve  three  terms,  the  perceiving 
subject,  the  mode  perceived  and  the  exterior  term  to  which  the 
mode  is  related.  In  the  comparison  of  two  modes,  for  example, 
two  colors  attributed  to  the  same  object,  the  subject  and  the  ex- 
terior term  may  remain  the  same,  while  only  the  modes  com- 
pared vary.  The  result  will  be  resemblance  or  diversity. 

Spontaneous  generalizations  precede  all  exercise  of  the  active 
faculties.  Beginning  with  these  vague  generalizations,  the  atten- 
tion abstracts  and  compares  to  form  regular  classes,  which  seem 

1  Cf.  pp.  48,  49. 

1  (Euvres  ineJites,  Vol.  II,  p.  151. 
3  Cf.  ibid.,  Vol.  II,  p.  155. 


PERCEPTIVE   SYSTEM  57 

to  embrace  all  the  phenomena  of  nature  under  general  titles. 
These  general  ideas  depend  upon  the  modifications  compared,  and 
consequently  have  a  value  relative  to  our  organism.  The  classifi- 
cations by  comparison  fail  to  deal  satisfactorily  with  the  reflective 
notions,  such  as  substance  and  cause,  since  these  ideas  are  iden- 
tical and  universal,  and  cannot  be  coordinated  by  resemblances. 

The  distinction  between  the  abstract  notions  of  reflection  and 
the  general  ideas  of  comparison  serves  Maine  de  Biran  both  as  a 
methodological  principle  and  as  a  solution  of  the  great  question 
of  mediaeval  philosophy.  The  attention  which  compares  variable 
modifications  and  fixes  on  relations  of  resemblance,  furnishes  the 
method  of  the  physical  and  the  natural  sciences ;  while  reflection, 
which  deals  with  the  invariable  elements  of  the  primitive  fact,  the 
self  and  the  resistance,  together  with  their  related  phenomena, 
opens  to  us  the  mathematical  and  psychological  sciences.  The 
general  ideas  have  no  more  value  than  the  nominalist  attributed 
to  them  ;  but  the  reflective  notions  have  all  the  being  which  the 
realist  attributed  to  universals. 

After  this  very  abstract  analysis  of  the  elements  of  an  abstract 
psychological  order,1  Maine  de  Biran  takes  up  the  unifying  func- 
tion of  consciousness,  as  it  appears  in  attention.  The  human 
mind,  according  to  him,  tends  constantly  to  reduce  all  the  variety 
of  its  modes,  objects  and  representations,  to  a  unity  of  idea. 
This  principle  applies  alike  to  the  direct  perceptions  of  the  senses 
and  to  the  most  elaborate  constructions  of  intelligence.  Our  first 
sensible  ideas,  far  from  being  given  ready-made  by  the  external 
world,  are  the  products  of  a  true  activity,  and  the  same  rule  holds 
of  our  conceptions  of  every  order.  The  purely  sentient  being 
obeys  laws  of  association  which  it  cannot  know.  But  the  intelli- 
gent being  prescribes  the  association  of  which  he  shall  take  ac- 
count. He  chooses  freely  the  elements  that  he  shall  unite,  and 
and  finding  within  the  models  for  his  constructions,  he  forms 
archetypal  ideas  of  totality,  harmony,  and  beauty,  under  which 
natural  phenomena  are  classified.  The  faculty  of  creating  these 
ideas  is  the  highest  attribute  of  intelligence.  The  principle  of 

1  Cf.  H.  Taine,  Philosophes  classiqties  du  XIXe  siecle,  p.  52,  where  Biran's  work 
is  described  as  "  a  mass  of  abstractions,  a  thicket  of  metaphysical  thistles." 


58  MAINE  DE  BIRAN'S  PHILOSOPHY 

unity,  which  characterizes  all  intellectual  combinations,  does  not 
appear  in  our  merely  sentient  nature,  but  is  based  on  the  first 
exercise  of  perceptive  activity. 

In  this  connection  it  is  very  important  to  keep  in  mind  the 
general  facts  of  Biran's  system,  otherwise  we  might  give  this 
principle  of  unity  a  wider  significance  thart  it  deserves.  The 
principle  of  unity  depends  upon  perceptive  activity.  Biran  equates 
"perceptive  activity"  with  "exercise  of  the  attention,"1  and 
"attention  is  only  the  will  itself  in  exercise."  2 

The  perceptive  system  occupies  an  important  place  in  the  psy- 
chology. After  an  analysis  of  the  respective  relations  of  atten- 
tion to  the  lower  senses,  to  vision,  and  to  touch,  the  transition 
is  made  through  active  touch  to  the  judgment  of  an  external 
world.  The  various  forms  of  judgment,  substantial,  modal,  and 
objective  are  then  described.  Next  we  have  an  account  of  mem- 
ory, in  the  active  sense,  that  is,  as  involving  attention,  and  as 
opposed  to  the  passive  forms  treated  earlier  in  the  psychology. 
Following  memory  come  comparison  and  generalization  which 
lead  to  a  distinction,  very  important  from  Biran's  point  of  view,  be- 
tween abstract  notions  and  general  ideas.  Finally  the  section  is 
closed  by  a  description  of  the  unifying  activity  of  consciousness 
which  is,  however,  worked  out  in  more  detail  in  the  next,  or  re- 
flective system. 

1  CEuvres  intdites,  Vol.  II,  p.  137. 

2  Ibid.,  Vol.  II,  p.  83. 


SECTION   X. 

REFLECTIVE  SYSTEM. 

The  fourth,  or  reflective,  system,  which  includes  the  last  divi- 
sion of  psychological  facts  according  to  Maine  de  Biran's  classifi- 
cation, differs  from  the  perceptive  system  in  considering  only  the 
elements  of  unity  or  permanence  in  consciousness.  Reflection  is 
"that  faculty  by  which  the  mind  perceives,  in  a  group  of  sensa- 
tions or  in  a  combination  of  phenomena  the  common  relation  of 
all  the  elements  to  a  fundamental  unity.'"  For  example,  several 
modes  or  qualities  to  a  unity  of  resistance,  several  different  effects 
to  the  same  cause,  variable  modification  to  the  same  self,  or  re- 
peated movements  to  the  same  productive  force.  It  is  difficult 
for  us  to  conceive  the  unity  of  self  and  of  cause,  of  subject  and 
object  in  the  variety  of  sensations ;  but  the  unity  is  not  the  less 
necessarily  given  to  us  with  every  perception  or  representation  of 
which  we  are  conscious.  In  another  place  Biran  equates  apper- 
ception and  reflection  and  defines  apperception  as  "  every  impres- 
sion in  which  the  self  can  recognize  itself  as  productive  cause, 
while  it  distinguishes  itself  from  the  sensible  effect  which  its 
action  determines."  2 

Reflection  has  its  origin  in  the  inner  perception  of  effort  or  of 
voluntary  movement.  In  accordance  with  the  method  followed 
in  the  earlier  parts  of  the  psychological  treatment,  we  first  have 
a  reference  to  the  organic  condition  which  makes  reflection 
possible.  The  problem  here  is  to  determine  the  means  by  which 
the  primitive  facts  become  explicit  for  consciousness.  In  the  case- 
of  perception,  it  was  active  touch  which  opened  the  way  to  the: 
knowledge  of  the  external  world.  The  same  means  will  not 
serve  in  the  present  case,  because  passive  touch  is  mingled  with 
active  touch  in  the  same  sense  organ.  The  desired  ground  for  re- 
flection is  a  condition  in  which  the  sense  of  effort  is  united  to  some 
sense  organs  in  such  a  way  that  its  products  shall  assume  a  sen- 

'  Op.  cit.,  Vol.  II,  p.  225. 
id.,  Vol.  II,  p.  9. 

59 


60  MAINE  DE  BIRAN'S  PHILOSOPHY 

sible  form  entirely  subordinate  to  the  will.  The  motor  and  sensi- 
tive being  must  refer  movements  to  itself,  as  the  unique  cause, 
and  also  refer  to  itself  the  impressions  which  result  from  these 
movements.  Then  the  attention  which  is  always  directed  to  the 
external  results  of  voluntary  acts  will  not  differ  from  the  reflection 
which  is  centered  on  the  feeling  of  free  power  that  effectualizes 
those  acts.  The  required  condition  is  found  in  the  sense  of 
hearing,  taken  in  connection  with  vocal  activity.  In  an  analysis 
of  the  correspondence  between  vocal  movements  and  auditory 
impressions,  we  may  hope  to  discover  the  original  laws  of  reflec- 
tion. While  the  voice  and  hearing  are  closely  related,  the  sensi- 
tive and  motor  functions  are  naturally  separated.  This  separation 
of  the  organ  under  control  of  the  will  from  the  sense  organs  pre- 
vents any  confusion  of  volition  and  its  results,  but  the  close 
relation  prevents  any  external  interference.  The  activity  which 
produces  the  vocal  movements  is  reflected  in  perception.  The 
individual  thus  has  a  redoubled  perception  of  his  own  activity. 
"  In  the  free  repetition  of  the  acts  that  his  will  determines,  he  has 
the  consciousness  of  the  power  that  performs  them.  He  perceives 
the  cause  in  the  effect  and  the  effect  in  the  cause ;  he  has  a  dis- 
tinct feeling  of  the  two  terms  of  that  fundamental  relation,  in  a 
word,  he  reflects."  *  Vocal  activity  and  auditory  sensation  thus 
have  characteristics  which  make  them  unique  organs  of  reflection. 
Hearing  may  be  called  the  special  sense  of  the  understanding. 
Biran  considers  that  Locke  was  wrong  in  accepting  reflection  as 
an  innate  faculty,  and  that  even  Condillac  did  not  carry  analysis 
far  enough  in  this  particular.2 

The  first  act  of  reflection  is  a  consciousness  of  voluntary 
activity  by  means  of  some  modification  which  results  at  least  in 
part  from  that  activity,  that  is,  the  perception  of  the  cause  in  the 
effect  that  is  sensed.  From  this  perception,  reflection  goes  on  to 
distinguish  elements  which  are  coordinated  in  the  same  group,  to 
observe  the  mode  of  their  coordination,  and  finally  to  rise  to 
universal  ideas.  By  the  first  act  of  reflection,  the  subject  per- 
ceives itself,  as  such,  distinct  from  the  resisting  limit ;  and  by  a 

1  op.  dt.,  Vol.  II,  p.  232. 
*  Cf.  ibid.,  Vol.  II,  P.  235. 


REFLECTIVE    SYSTEM  6  I 

similar  act  of  reflection  the  motor  being,  in  articulating  sounds, 
distinguishes  the  vocal  effort  from  the  effects  produced.  With 
this  distinction  signs  are  established. 

According  to  Maine  de  Biran,  man  speaks  because  he  thinks, 
rather  than  thinks  because  he  speaks.  The  first  use  of  the  intel- 
lectual sign  (the  word)  is  dependent  upon  the  primitive  fact  of 
consciousness,  that  is,  the  immediate  inner  apperception  of  the 
subject  of  effort  as  distinct  from  the  resisting  limit.  The 
impressions  of  the  animal  are  confused.  The  sentient  being  does 
not  distinguish  ;  it  is  not  a  self  distinct  from  impressions.  The 
defect  is  not  in  articulation,  since  some  animals  can  imitate  very 
well  the  sound  of  the  human  voice. 

The  ground  of  the  reflective  notion  is  in  us  independent  of  all 
signs.  But  there  is  a  great  difference  between  confusedly  per- 
ceiving several  modifications  united  in  a  whole,  and  perceiving 
distinctly  the  abstract  modifications.  The  latter  perception  is 
made  possible  by  means  of  language  signs.  The  individual  per- 
ceives that  he  exists  from  the  first  exercise  of  effort ;  but  it  is 
still  true  that  he  does  not  have  a  distinct  notion  of  his  existence 
until  he  can  connect  the  primitive  judgment  with  a  permanent 
sign.  Similarly,  in  order  to  have  a  distinct  notion  of  resistance, 
substance,  unity,  or  cause,  it  is  necessary  to  employ  signs ;  for 
otherwise  these  ideas  remain  confused  in  the  groups  of  which 
they  constitute  the  essential  forms. 

The  treatment  of  words  leads  Maine  de  Biran  to  a  further 
consideration  of  memory.  He  again  very  consistently  empha- 
sizes its  active  character.  Intellectual  memory  arises  from  a 
repetition  of  an  act  of  will.  It  has  to  do  only  with  perceptions 
which  are  related  to  the  sense  of  effort.  Mere  affections  fall 
beyond  the  power  of  memory.  They  may  be  accompanied  by 
intuitions  or  perceptions,  which  can  be  remembered  and  thus  we 
can  know  that  we  have  experienced  pleasantness  or  unpleasant- 
ness, but  the  simple  affection  cannot  be  revived.  Memory  differs 
from  imagination.  The  first  is  an  active  faculty  which  conserves 
ideas  by  means  of  their  signs  ;  the  second  is  a  passive  faculty 
which  preserves  traces  of  impressions.  In  every  thought  there 
is  a  hidden  activity  of  the  voice  and  the  sense  of  hearing  ;  "  we 


62  MAINE    DE    BIRAN's    PHILOSOPHY 

speak  to  ourselves  very  softly."  l  Since  the  signs  are  voluntary 
movements,  they  become  obscured  by  habit  and  are  lost  in  the 
concrete  perceptions.  Intuitions  and  images  occur  with  the 
memory  signs,  but  they  follow  their  own  laws.  In  the  exercise 
of  memory,  the  representation  of  ideas  is  subordinated  to  the 
recall  of  voluntary  signs  ;  while  in  the  exercise  of  imagination, 
the  reproduction  of  images  is  independent  of  the  accompanying 
signs.  The  result  is  that  we  can  recall  only  phenomena  in  which 
we  have  had  an  active  part,  that  is,  that  we  ourselves  have  made, 
combined,  or  intentionally  imitated. 

Reasoning  is  the  most  important  topic  that  comes  in  for  con- 
sideration under  the  reflective  system.  Maine  de  Biran  criticizes 
the  abstract  view  that  reasoning  is  mere  subsumption  of  particular 
under  general  ideas.  The  deduction  from  general  to  particular 
presupposes  that  the  subject  of  the  reasoning  is  a  general  term. 
The  process  is  analytic  and  the  relation  between  the  terms  is 
only  quantitative.  But  the  actual  judgments  of  external  experi- 
ence have  individual  and  concrete  subjects  made  up  of  diverse 
sensible  qualities.  Each  judgment  is  a  step  in  the  analysis  of  the 
object ;  but  the  series  of  judgments  of  experience  is  not  properly 
called  reasoning,  because  there  is  no  necessary  relation  between 
the  judgments  or  between  the  series  of  judgments  and  the  sub- 
ject. However  far  induction  is  carried  we  cannot  reach  a  neces- 
sary relation.  The  major  premise  becomes  false  by  representing 
a  contingent  fact  as  an  absolute  truth.  True  reasoning,  on  the 
other  hand,  depends  upon  necessary  and  eternal  truths,  such,  for 
example,  as  are  found  in  geometry  and  metaphysics.  The  purely 
logical  necessity  found  in  the  analysis  of  a  general  idea,  a  neces- 
sity which  consists  in  fidelity  to  the  linguistic  conventions  that 
have  created  a  collective  sign,  must  not  be  confused  with  the 
necessity  which  results  from  the  nature  of  things.  Reasoning 
based  on  general  ideas  is  hypothetical,  since  it  treats  the  resem- 
blances, which  determine  the  genus,  as  identities.  Biran  would 
agree  with  Hume  that  sciences  based  merely  on  external  experi- 
ence have  only  a  descriptive  validity.  Moreover,  each  philoso- 
pher maintains  that  mathematics  (arithmetic  and  algebra)  has 

i  Op.  cit.,  Vol.  II,  p.  248. 


REFLECTIVE    SYSTEM  63 

universal  validity.1  But  they  they  base  their  doctrine  on  different 
grounds  :  Hume  on  the  principle  that  mathematical  judgments 
are  purely  analytical  ;  Biran  on  the  principle  that  they  are 
deduced  from  a  real  fact,  the  resistance  which  meets  the  will. 
Hume  denies  the  validity  of  metaphysics.  Biran  affirms  its 
validity  as  a  deductive  science  based  on  the  psychological  fact  of 
effort.2 

Reason  'iis  the  faculty  of  perceiving  relations  between  simple 
beings  or  between  the  different  attributes  of  the  same  simple  be- 
ing. It  presupposes  the  faculty  of  conceiving  or  judging  the 
existence  of  such  a  being,"3  that  is,  it  involves  reflective  acts. 
Under  this  condition  the  subjects  are  identical  and  not  merely 
similar.  Since  the  relations  are  independent  of  the  modifications 
of  sensibility  we  have  the  required  characteristic  of  necessity. 
Attributes  are  related  to  subjects,  not  as  the  particular  to  the 
general,  but  by  necessary  dependence.  They  arise  by  the  de- 
velopment of  the  subject.  Judgments  which  express  this  depen- 
dence are  synthetic.  Analysis  is  merely  a  preparation  which 
stops  at  the  simple  subjects,  that  is,  at  the  starting  point  of 
reasoning.  For  example,  by  acts  of  abstract  reflection,  we  reach 
the  distinct  conception  of  the  two  elements  of  the  fact  of  con- 
sciousness, the  self  and  the  resistance.  It  is  impossible  to  reduce 
these  ideas  of  real  existences  by  any  further  analysis.  , 

After  having  perceived  the  relations  of  the  attribute  to  the  sub- 
ject in  a  judgment,  the  mind  perceives  the  relation  of  several  judg- 
ments to  each  other,  or  the  necessary  dependence  in  which  the 
several  attributes  stand  to  the  same  essence.  "  Reasoning  thus 
consists  in  a  succession  of  synthetic  judgments  which  have  a 
common  real  subject,"  4  and  which  are  united  so  that  the  mind 
perceives  their  reciprocal  dependence,  without  having  recourse  to 
any  idea  foreign  to  the  essence  of  the  subject. 

Less  abstractly  stated,  Maine  de  Biran  finds  that  the  principle  : 
"  All  that  is  true  of  a  ...  class  is  true  of  all  the  individuals 
comprised  in  the  class  ;  relates  only  to  conditional  truth.  For 

1  Cf.  Treatise  of  Human  Nature,  Bk.  I,  Pt.  Ill,  §1. 

2  Cf.  p.  66. 

3  (Euvres  inedites,  Vol.  II,  p.  263. 

id.,  Vol.  II,  p.  263. 


64  MAINE  DE  BIRAN'S  PHILOSOPHY 

classes  are  the  work  of  the  mind."  This  is  the  fact  when  it  is  a 
question  of  relations  perceived  between  qualities  which  vary  in  the 
individuals  compared.  But  the  case  is  different  when  it  is  a 
question  of  universal  ideas  or  essential  attributes,  that  are  always 
the  same  in  all  objects  to  which  thought  refers  them,  and  which 
are  necessary  conditions  of  all  possible  representation.  Here  we 
are  dealing  not  with  a  kind  or  class,  but  with  an  individual.  The 
principle  of  the  syllogism  can  then  be  stated  as  follows  :  "  All 
that  is  true  of  the  subject  of  a  universal  idea  is  necessarily  and 
identically  true  of  the  same  subject  considered  in  any  other  rela- 
tion or  combination."  * 

Universal  ideas  are  clearly  illustrated  by  the  science  of  mathe- 
matics, which,  according  to  Maine  de  Biran,  is  not  a  science  of 
conditional  truth,  but  a  science  of  true  relations  that  subsist  be- 
tween noumena.  These  relations  remain  always  the  same,  they 
are  independent  of  all  variations  of  sensibility,  and  they  would 
not  change  by  reason  of  any  difference  in  the  organization  of  the 
beings  who  perceive  them. 

Universal  ideas,  then,  must  have  a  basis  in  fact.  Disregard 
of  this  necessity  is  the  error  of  the  philosophers  who  have  ab- 
stracted from  the  foundation  of  reason  and  retained  merely  the 
form  that  it  takes  in  language.  By  isolating  the  purely  intel- 
lectual processes  from  the  accompanying  mental  processes,  they 
have  attempted  to  reduce  all  logic  to  a  universal  algebra  of 
ideas.  But  since  the  relations  between  ideas  depend  absolutely 
upon  the  nature  of  the  ideas,  the  signs  which  express  those  rela- 
tions, and  consequently  the  logical  forms  which  are  functions  of 
the  signs,  cannot  be  abstracted  from  the  ideas  themselves. 
That  is,  the  intellectual  process  of  determining  the  relation  of  the 
ideas  can  never  be  separated  from  the  factual  character  of  the 
ideas. 

The  actual  idea  includes  all  the  attributes  which  make  up,  for 
us,  the  existence  of  the  object,  together  with  all  the  properties 
which  the  senses  can  discover.  The  coexistence  of  these  attri- 
butes and  qualities  depends  upon  successive  judgments  of  ex- 
perience. The  function  of  reason  is  to  determine  how  all  these 
1  op.  tit.,  Vol.  II,  p.  267. 


REFLECTIVE    SYSTEM  65 

properties  are  different  expressions  of  the  same  essence.  "  Be- 
ginning with  a  primary  attribute,  for  example,  thought,  or  the 
feeling  of  individuality  which  constitutes  the  subject  a  self,  or  the 
resistance  which  constitutes  for  us  what  we  call  body,  we  deduce 
all  the  other  attributes  or  modes  that  we  know  by  inner  feeling 
in  the  subject  or  by  representation  in  the  object."  The  depend- 
ence of  the  idea  upon  the  primitive  fact  is  the  first  condition  of 
reasoning.  To  reduce  the  process  to  a  play  of  language  is  to 
abstract  from  the  intellectual  acts  that  unite  judgments  with  each 
other  and  with  immediate  intuition. 

The  object  of  perception  is  given  to  the  mind  as  simple.  Per- 
ception is  thus  the  immediate  view  of  a  simple  and  real  subject. 
No  further  analysis  can  make  the  object  itself  more  clearly  per- 
ceived than  it  is  by  the  simple  fact  of  its  immediate  presence  in 
the  mind.  But  by  abstraction  from  the  notion  of  the  perceived 
object  we  can  discover  in  that  notion  elementary  relations,  which 
are  distinguished  by  the  aid  of  signs,  but  which  are  not  them- 
selves objects  of  perception.  Thus,  while  we  distinguish  by 
signs  the  self,  or  effort,  from  resistance,  there  is  no  real  percep- 
tion of  the  self  separated  from  the  feeling  of  resistance.  When 
the  signs  divide  the  totality  of  the  object  of  perception  into  parts, 
the  understanding  sees  these  parts  as  necessarily  related  to  the 
existence  of  the  whole.  Here  begin  perceptive  judgments  which 
develop  the  essence  of  the  subject,  not  by  making  the  notion 
more  clear  or  distinct  in  itself,  but  by  making  it  more  adequate. 
They  express  the  relation  of  the  elements  to  the  whole  from 
which  they  are  inseparable.  The  result  is  the  logical  composi- 
tion of  the  object,  the  simple  nature  of  which  does  not  in  reality 
change.  All  conception  of  necessary  relation  is  thus  connected 
with  perceptive  judgments.  The  possibility  of  correlation  with 
perception  becomes  the  mark  which  distinguishes  the  truth  of 
absolute  certainty  from  simple  belief. 

After  the  description  of  perceptive  judgment  we  can  easily 
understand  Maine  de  Biran's  conception  of  deduction.  In  his 
view,  perceptive  truths,  that  is,  the  facts  of  inner  experience  and 
their  immediate  consequences  form  the  basis  of  all  the  work  of 

1  Op.  cit.,  Vol.  II,  p.  270. 


66  MAINE  DE  BIRAN'S  PHILOSOPHY 

the  reason.  The  perceptive  judgments  are  from  their  very  nature 
undemonstrable.  They  are  independent  one  of  another,  and  con- 
sequently cannot  be  the  result  of  any  form  of  reasoning.  But 
there  are  secondary  truths  which  are  related  to  each  other  and  to 
the  primary  truths.  Deduction  is  the  process  of  arriving  at  these 
secondary  truths  and  of  determining  their  relation  to  fundamental 
truths.  While  the  perceptive  judgment  is  always  actual,  that  is, 
it  cannot  be  recalled  without  the  immediate  recognition  of  its 
proof,  the  case  is  different  with  deduced  truths.  When  they  are 
recalled  they  do  not  become  self-evident,  yet  they  are  certain, 
for  the  intellectual  memory,  in  recalling  them,  recalls  at  the  same 
time  their  necessary  dependence  upon  an  established  first  prin- 
ciple. Without  confidence  in  the  memory  no  reasoning  could 
take  place ;  the  mind  would  never  get  beyond  the  narrow  limits 
of  primary  truths.  Since  the  certainty  of  deduction  is  essentially 
different  from  the  certainty  of  perception,  there  can  be  a  condi- 
tional certitude  without  the  slightest  degree  of  absolute  truth. 
Conditional  truth  only  presupposes  that  the  chain  of  reasoning 
has  been  regular ;  it  has  exactly  the  same  value  as  the  postulate 
from  which  it  is  deduced. 

As  already  stated  Maine  de  Biran  makes  psychology  a  pure 
deductive  science.  The  elements  of  the  primitive  fact,  when 
separated  by  reflective  analysis  from  their  synthetic  union  with 
impressions,  become  the  true  subjects  of  reasoning.  Biran  holds 
that  all  ideas  which  give  phenomena  a  fixed  character,  or  which 
establish  necessary  relations  proceed  from  the  self  and  not  from 
sensations.  The  two  terms  of  the  fact  of  consciousness,  effort 
and  resistance,  are  the  primitive  and  real  subjects.  Reduced  to 
their  essential  attributes,  they  form  the  respective  objects  of  the 
two  sciences  of  pure  reason,  psychology  and  mathematics.  The 
sciences  of  description  and  classification,  which  are  based  upon 
resemblances  dependent  upon  our  organism,  are  conditional.  Nat- 
ural science  is  truly  deductive  only  because  its  facts  involve  the 
application  of  causal  necessity. 

Resistance  as  a  factual  unity  is  discovered  by  reflective  abstrac- 
tion. The  result  is  the  first  mathematical  conception.  The  idea 
is  simple  and  individual ;  unity  is  subject  or  common  antecedent 


REFLECTIVE   SYSTEM  6/ 

of  all  numerical  relations.  The  judgments  which  have  to  do  with 
that  unity  make  up  arithmetic.  Geometry  has  its  origin  in  the 
same  real  fact.  The  line  is  the  coordination  of  resisting  unities. 
In  these  sciences  we  can  go  on  indefinitely  without  taking  account 
of  any  foreign  elements.  The  identical  nature  of  the  elements 
establishes  the  universal  and  necessary  character  of  the  relations. 

Psychology  is  also  an  absolute  science.  It  differs  from  mathe- 
matics in  the  fact  that  its  subject  (effort)  admits  of  no  schematism, 
or  representation,  similar  to  geometrical  figures.  While  the  self 
cannot  be  analyzed,  it  nevertheless  occasions  the  reflective  judg- 
ments which  make  up  psychology.  Identity,  freedom,  causality 
of  the  self  and  of  the  not-self,  the  differences  between  effort  and 
its  limit,  are  deduced  from  the  primitive  fact  by  a  series  of  identi- 
cal judgments.  They  are  merely  that  fact  seen  from  different 
points  of  view.  Maine  de  Biran  is  never  tired  of  insisting  that  it 
is  not  a  question  of  "  logical  identities  or  of  conditional  truths, 
but  of  real  identities,  of  inner  facts,  of  absolute  truths  established 
by  the  inner  sense."  l 

Some  of  the  natural  sciences  have  a  certainty  only  secondary 
to  that  of  mathematics  and  psychology.  There  are  two  kinds  of 
causality  to  be  distinguished,  "efficient"  and  "physical."  In 
"efficient  causality,"  "we  conceive  distinctly  how  a  cause  being 
given  in  its  most  immediate  effect  .  .  .  other  facts  must  necessarily 
follow."  In  physical  causality,  the  cause  is  not  given  or  con- 
ceived in  any  effect  which  can  be  its  immediate  expression  ;  and 
"  the  mind  is  limited  to  observing  experimentally  the  order  of 
phenomenal  succession."  3  Here  the  anterior  phenomenon  is  the 
physical  cause.  Now  in  cases  where  there  is  an  efficient  cause  as 
a  first  effect  or  known  tendency,  and  we  are  dealing  simply  with 
this  efficient  cause  and  with  the  simple  modes  of  space  and  time, 
we  have  certainty.  This  is  true  in  regard  to  Newton's  deduction 
of  the  system  of  the  world,  for  he  treated  forces  mathematically, 
not  physically. 

In  true  deductions,  that  is,  those  of  the  sort  just  mentioned, 
there  is  no  presupposition  ;  all  is  certain.  There  are,  however, 

'  Op  cit.,  Vol.  II,  p.  324. 

*  Ibid.,  Vol.  II,  p.  330. 

*  Ibid.,  Vol.  II,  p.  331. 


68  MAINE  DE  BIRAN'S  PHILOSOPHY 

intellectual  operations  which  take  account  of  the  mode  of  action 
of  physical  causes.  The  result  is  an  explanation  of  a  fact  of 
experience,  which  has  only  a  probable  truth.  In  this  method  we 
always  have  the  three  steps,  experience,  hypothesis,  and  compari- 
son of  the  hypothesis  with  the  facts. 

The  fourth  system  concludes  Maine  de  Biran's  account  of  psy- 
chological facts.  At  first,  he  shows  in  detail  how  we  arrive  at 
an  explicit  perception  of  the  self.  The  remainder  of  the  section 
is  given  up  to  the  application  of  the  self,  and  of  the  other  princi- 
ples of  unity  which  go  with  the  perception  of  the  self,  i.  e.,  sub- 
stance, and  causality,  to  the  problem  of  knowledge.  Reason  is 
described  as  depending  on  these  ultimate  factual  principles.  The 
processes  of  induction  and  deduction  are  evaluated  and  the  funda- 
mental distinction  between  the  abstract  factual  notion  and  the 
general  idea  is  again  emphasized.  Finally  the  validity  of  scien- 
tific knowledge  is  investigated  and  a  natural  classification  of  the 
sciences  is  presented.  Before  considering  Biran's  treatment  of 
aesthetic,  ethical,  and  religious  problems,  we  shall  briefly  com- 
pare the  psychology  with  the  views  of  Condillac. 


SECTION    XI. 

COMPARISON  OF  BIRAN'S  Psychologic  WITH  CONDILLAC'S 
Traite  des  sensations. 

A  comparison  of  the  psychology  with  Condillac's  Traite  des 
sensations  shows  the  intimate  relation  in  which  Maine  de  Biran 
stood  to  this  philosopher.  It  is  not  to  depreciate  Biran' s  origi- 
nality or  the  value  of  his  leading  ideas  that  attention  is  called  to 
this  similarity.  In  the  early  part  of  the  treatment  it  was  shown 
in  what  respects  Biran  differed  from  Condillac ;  and  constant  at- 
tention has  been  given  to  the  emphasis  which  the  former  placed 
upon  the  idea  of  activity.  But  here,  having  finished  the  account 
of  the  psychology,  it  seems  necessary  briefly  to  indicate  the 
resemblance  of  that  work  to  the  Traite  des  sensations. 

This  similarity  extends  not  only  to  the  general  structure  of  the 
work,  but  even  to  the  solution  of  many  important  problems. 
First  in  reference  to  the  principal  divisions,  we  have  found  that 
Biran  distinguishes  four  general  systems  under  which  he  classi- 
fies psychological  phenomena.  There  is  the  affective  system 
which  has  to  do  with  sensations  abstracted  from  the  idea  of  self, 
and  with  the  simple  modes  of  pleasure  and  pain.  Then  comes 
the  sensitive  system,  the  first  in  the  order  of  consciousness,  in 
which  the  self  is  present  with  the  phenomena,  an  "interested" 
but  inactive  spectator.  Next  in  order  is  the  perceptive  system, 
in  which  the  self  is  an  active  factor  in  phenomena.  And  finally 
the  reflective  system,  which  treats  of  the  active  elements  in  con- 
sciousness without  reference  to  the  merely  passive  modes.  Turn- 
ing to  the  Traite  des  sensations,  we  find  that  here  also  are  four 
general  divisions.  The  first  deals  "  with  the  senses  which  by 
themselves  do  not  judge  of  external  objects,"  !  and  shows  "the 
influence  of  pleasures  and  pains."2  The  second  part  has  to  do 
with  the  commencement  of  the  animal  life,  with  the  stage  in 
which  the  statue  for  the  first  time  "can  speak  of  self,"3  and  with 

1  Traite  des  sensations,  p.  II. 
''•Ibid.,  p.  22. 
*Ibid.,  II,  Ch.  I,  §3. 


70  MAINE    DE    BIRAN  S    PHILOSOPHY 

the  beginning  of  memory.1  The  third  part  relates  to  the  judg- 
ments in  regard  to  the  external  object.  The  fourth  part  shows 
"  how  we  become  capable  of  prevision  and  industry,"  "what  our 
first  judgments  are  concerning  the  goodness  and  beauty  of 
things.  In  a  word  it  is  seen  how  man  having  been  at  first  only 
a  sentient  animal  becomes  a  reflective 'animal."2 

The  similarity  of  the  works  is  still  more  striking  when  we 
consider  the  answers  that  are  given  to  special  questions.  To 
take  an  important  instance,  the  origin  of  the  judgment  of  exter- 
nality, for  Maine  de  Biran,  is  found  in  the  resistance  which  meets 
the  active  exercise  of  the  sense  of  touch.  Were  it  not  for  this 
sense  no  other  forms  of  sensation  could  ever  give  us  knowledge 
of  the  external  world.  Condillac  had  already  given  the  same 
solution  to  the  problem.  The  entire  third  part  of  the  Traite  des 
sensations  describes  "  how  touch  teaches  the  other  senses  to 
judge  of  external  objects."  Chapter  four  of  this  part  explains 
why  we  attribute  to  vision  an  independence  of  function  which  it 
does  not  in  reality  possess.  We  have  seen  that  Maine  de  Biran 
made  the  judgment  of  externality  depend  upon  active,  not  upon 
passive,  touch.  Condillac  after  maintaining  that  no  knowledge 
of  external  objects  can  be  derived  from  olfactory,  auditory,  gus- 
tatory, and  visual  sensations,  says:  "Just  as  certainly  there 
would  be  the  same  ignorance  with  the  sense  of  touch  if  it  re- 
mained motionless."  3  We  have  then  the  origin  of  the  judgment 
of  externality  explained  by  the  same  fact,  the  activity  of  the  or- 
gan of  touch.  The  difference  is  in  the  introspective  account  of 
the  psychical  accompaniment  of  the  act.  With  Maine  de  Biran 
it  is  an  act  of  a  self;  with  Condillac  it  is  the  movement  of  an 
organism. 

This  is  a  single  instance.  We  find  the  same  similarity  and  the 
same  difference  in  the  accounts  given  of  other  psychological  phe- 
nomena. For  example,  the  idea  of  self  depends  according  to  Con- 
dillac on  the  sense  of  touch.  By  this  sense  the  statue  becomes  more 
than  a  mere  modification  of  sensations.  According  to  Maine  de 
Biran,  the  idea  of  self  depends  upon  the  fact  that  our  effort  meets  a 

1  op.  dt.,  II,  Ch.  XI. 
*Ibid.,?.  39. 

3 Ibid.,  p.  29. 


BIRAN    AND    CONDILLAC  /I 

limit  in  the  muscular  sensation  of  our  own  body.  The  similarity 
is  obvious.  It  is  unnecessary  to  go  into  further  detail  to  emphasize 
the  close  connection  between  Maine  de  Biran's  philosophy  and 
sensationalism.  Each  is  a  form  of  empiricism,  a  development  of 
certain  phases  of  Locke's  system.  Each  is  really  a  theory  of 
knowledge  which  involves  a  realistic  ontology.  The  great  differ- 
ence between  Biran  and  Condillac  is  in  the  idea  of  self-activity, 
which  is  almost  absent  from  the  philosophy  of  the  latter,  while 
it  is  the  leading  idea  in  Biran's  system.  The  supervention  of  the 
self,  as  an  active  principle,  upon  the  phenomena  of  the  "affective 
system  "  produces  the  phenomena  of  the  "  sensitive  system,"  and 
it  is  the  increasing  influence  of  the  active  principle  that  explains 
the  higher  psychological  facts.  With  Condillac,  on  the  other 
hand,  the  problem  is  to  show  how  the  higher  mental  functions  are 
built  up  out  of  pure  sensations,  without  the  intervention  of  any 
higher  principle.  Biran's  work  is  in  a  certain  sense  a  return  from 
Condillac  to  Locke,  but  there  is  a  difference  between  the  treatment 
of  self-activity  in  the  philosophy  of  Biran  and  in  that  of  Locke. 
With  Locke  reflection  is  merely  one  source  of  knowledge ;  with 
Biran  effort  is  a  constituent  factor  in  all  consciousness.  In  this 
respect  Biran's  position  is  an  advance  upon  that  of  Condillac. 
But  his  work  rather  shows  the  difficulties  in  sensationalism  than 
presents  any  self-consistent  solution.  His  principle  is  subjective 
and  psychological  to  the  end.  There  is  no  satisfactory  account 
of  the  universal  and  necessary  character  of  the  categories  of 
thought.  Biran's  historical  significance  consists  mainly  in  the 
personal  influence  which  he  exerted  on  Cousin. 


SECTION    XII. 

ETHICS  AND  ^ESTHETICS. 
/ — 
I  At  this  point  we  shall  briefly  consider  Maine  de  Biran's  very 

fragmentary  account  of  ethics  and  aesthetics.  In  connection  with 
the  third  system  described  above,  he  gives  a  psychological  basis 
for  ethics.  He  speaks  approvingly  of  the  moral  sense  theory. 
Human  actions  and  natural  phenomena  affect  us  very  differently. 
Although  the  moralist  can  combine  under  a  sign  different  ele- 
ments which  are  not  combined  in  nature  ;  the  combinations  thus 
formed  to  represent  real  or  possible  action  are  not  arbitrary,  for 
not  all  elements  are  equally  compatible  with  each  other.  The 
factor  which  determines  the  compatibility  of  elements,  and  so  the 
possibility  of  their  connection,  is  the  natural  constitution  of  the 
moral  sense.  Combinations  which  affect  the  moral  sense  in  a 
definite  manner,  or  form  the  basis  of  the  various  classes  of  actions, 
arouse  particular  feelings  of  attraction  or  aversion,  of  love  or  hate. 
The  qualities  or  actions  which  are  suited  to  excite  the  same  feel- 
ings in  the  mind  must  have  a  resemblance.  It  is  this  definite 
reaction  of  human  nature  which  constitutes  the  unity  of  a  class  of 
actions.  This  is  the  source  of  the  common  character  found  in 
the  general  ideas  of  obligation,  virtue,  and  vice.  Despite  the 
variety  of  elements,  all  the  mixed  modes  admit  of  a  certain  kind 
of  real  unity. 

The  moral  constitution  of  man,  although  variously  modified, 
displays  a  common  character  in  all  individuals.  But  owing  to 
the  variety  of  feelings  with  which  moral  ideas  are  associated,  it  is 
hopeless  to  attempt  a  rigorous  application  of  the  mathematical 
method.  There  are,  however,  certain  limits  imposed  by  inner 
experience  from  which  moral  ideas  can  never  escape. 

In  the  lower  systems,  affection  precedes  judgment ;  but  the 
higher  phenomena  of  the  third  system,  e.  g.,  the  consciousness 
of  the  beautiful,  wonder,  and  admiration  are  consecutive  to  judg- 
ment. Surprise  is  an  emotion  that  arises  from  a  contrast  be- 
tween an  earlier  state  of  sensibility  and  a  state  which  a  new  im- 

72 


ETHICS    AND    AESTHETICS  73 

pression  tends  to  excite.  It  is  strictly  an  emotion  rather  than  a 
sentiment  since  it  is  anterior  to  all  comparison.  When  surprise 
is  very  vivid  fear  results  ;  when  it  only  moderate  wonder  is  pro- 
duced. In  the  latter  case,  the  subject  tries  to  attribute  the  new 
factor  to  some  natural  cause.  With  success  in  this  attempt 
there  arises  the  agreeable  feeling  which  attends  the  discovery  of 
a  new  relation,  with  failure  the  wonder  simply  increases.  Maine 
de  Biran  agrees  that  wonder  is  the  source  of  science,  since  "it 
gives  movement  to  the  human  mind  .  .  .  and  ends  by  reducing 
to  intelligence  the  laws  which  control  the  universe." l  Ad- 
miration is  not  a  kind  of  wonder  (Descartes)  through  it  may  suc- 
ceed surprise.  The  better  we  know  what  is  great  and  beautiful 
in  itself,  the  more  we  are  struck  with  admiration.  Wonder  and 
admiration  are  essentially  different  from  emotions,  because  they 
are  much  more  closely  related  to  ideas,  yet  they  do  not  influence 
the  ideas  directly  through  belief.  They  have  'a  certain  constant 
character  from  the  fact  that  they  occur  whenever  attention  is 
directed  to  particular  relations  of  ideas.  Emotions,  on  the  other 
hand,  presuppose  anterior  dispositions  of  sensibility  without  which 
they  do  not  arise. a 

Maine  de  Biran  briefly  traces  the  respective  influence  of  the 
emotions  and  of  the  ideas  with  their  related  feelings  on  the  con- 
duct of  the  moral  agent.  The  individual,  who  is  determined  by 
emotion,  is  bound  to  the  attraction  of  the  present  pleasure ;  the 
individual,  who  is  dominated  by  ideas,  follows  fixed  lines  of  con- 
duct. Attention  can  make  an  idea  vivid  enough  to  overcome 
the  immediate  impulses  of  sensation.  Activity  is  thus  the  condi- 
tion of  moral  preference.  The  guarantee  of  freedom  is  the  fact 
that,  while  sensibility  is  limited,  the  power  of  the  will  is  suscep- 
tible of  indefinite  increase.  Freedom  arises  from  the  opposition 
which  exists  between  the  emotions  and  the  higher  feelings,  and 
from  the  possibility  of  choice  that  results  from  that  opposition.3 

In  the  early  part  of  the  Fondements  de  la  morale  et  de  la  reli- 
gion, we  have  Maine  de  Biran's  nearest  approach  to  the  formula- 
tion of  an  ethical  system.  A  brief  notice  of  this  work  will  sup- 

1  (Euvres  inedites,  Vol.  II,  p.  211. 

2Cf.  ibid.,  Vol.  II,  p.  212. 

3  Cf.  ibid.,  Vol.  II,  pp.  215-216. 


74  MAINE    DE    BIRAX  S    PHILOSOPHY 

plement  his  fragmentary  treatment  of  the  moral  sentiments  in  the 
psychology. 

The  relations  of  man  with  man  are  founded  on  a  sympathy 
which  is  contemporaneous  with  the  very  existence  of  the  individ- 
ual. They  are  distinct  from  the  relations  which  man  sustains 
to  the  rest  of  nature.  In  order  to  be  moral,  the  sentient  and 
intelligent  being  must  attribute  to  other  beings  like  himself,  a 
self,  a  will,  and  feelings  and  rights  similar  to  his  own.  The 
moral  consciousness  "so  to  speak  sees  itself  in  another  as  in  an 
animate  mirror."  l  In  this  moral  consciousness,  the  personal 
affections  are  transformed  into  expansive  feelings.  At  times 
Biran  describes  this  transformation  as  the  result  of  sympathy  in 
the  more  affective  sense.  He  says  :  "  The  strong  measures-his 
right  by  his  strength ;  the  weak  submits  to  the  law  of  necessity. 
But  give  to  the  strong  a  feeling  of  sympathy  and  love,  and  he 
will  aid  rather  than  oppress  the  weak,  because  the  suffering  and 
oppression  of  his  weak  fellow  cause  him  suffering."  2  And  again 
he  says  :  "  It  is  first  in  the  family  that  the  feelings  of  benevolence, 
protection,  and  sympathy  arise  and  develop."  :  At  other  times 
Biran  gives  a  more  rationalistic  account  of  the  relation  of  the  in- 
dividual and  society.  "  What  is  right  in  the  consciousness  of  the 
individual  .  .  .  becomes  duty  in  the  consciousness  of  the  ethical 
person  who  attributes  the  same  right  to  other  persons."  The 
principle  of  all  virtuous  action  is  in  the  need  of  approval  from 
others,  "  that  is,  from  the  reason  itself  in  which  all  participate 
equally."4  The  principle  of  duty  has  nothing  in  common  with 
modifications  of  individual  sensibility,  or  with  special  relations  of 
particular  persons,  but  belongs  to  free  beings  in  virtue  of  their 
participation  "in  that  reason  which  illuminates  all  intelligences." 

The  variations  in  actual  morality  are  recognized  and  are 
explained  as  due  to  failure  in  estimating  the  real  significance  of 
acts,  or  in  finding  the  proper  means  of  realizing  ends.  "  There 
is  at  least  a  very  general  agreement  in  the  manner  of  judging 
qualities  which  are  truly  worthy  of  esteem  (those  which  tend  to 
1  op.  dt.,  Vol.  Ill,  p.  33. 

*Ibid.,  Vol.  Ill,  p.  36. 
3 Ibid.,  Vol.  Ill,  p.  48. 
*Ibid.t  Vol.  Ill,  pp.  37-38. 


ETHICS    AND    AESTHETICS  75 

the  perfection  of  the  individual  or  the  race)."  l  "  There  is  a'com- 
mon  principle  in  the  diverse  acts  which  receive  the  general  ap- 
probation of  men."  2  Morality  seems  relative  because  judgment 
is  passed  upon  acts  rather  than  upon  motives. 

^Esthetic  ideas  are  closely  related  to  moral  ideas.  Both  classes 
emanate  from  the  same  active  faculty  of  the  mind  ;  and  each  class 
is  related  to  certain  feelings  which  determine  it,  and  which  it 
always  excites.  The  imagination  can  never  free  itself  entirely 
from  the  feeling  elements  on  which  it  is  established.  There  is, 
however,  a  lesser  degree  of  universality  in  aesthetic  than  in  moral 
ideas  ;  but  in  each  case  there  is  an  absolute  as  well  as  a  relative 
element.  Beauty  applies  to  totalities  of  perceptions,  of  images, 
or  of  intellectual  ideas,  wyhich  are  combined  in  a  certain  order. 
But  when  we  attempt  to  define  the  order  more  exactly  we  pass 
from  general  to  particular  ideas,  and  each  person  represents  the 
order  by  the  types  or  combinations  which  are  most  agreeable  to 
him.  Consequently  there  is  great  divergence  of  opinion  in  regard 
to  what  constitutes  beauty. 

The  impressions  which  immediately  affect  the  sensibility,  such 
as  odors,  tastes,  or  tactual  qualities,  have  nothing  in  common  with 
the  idea  of  the  beautiful.  They  may  be  agreeable,  but  not  beauti- 
ful. Relation  with  the  active  faculty  of  perception,  judgment,  or 
comparison  is  essential  to  constitute  beauty.  That  is,  a  judgment 
is  necessary  to  establish  the  feeling  of  the  beautiful,  while  a  simple 
tone  or  color  may  condition  an  agreeable  feeling.  Beauty  requires 
a  more  or  less  extensive  combination  of  perceptions  and  ideas. 
And  a  combination  to  be  beautiful  must  not  only  be  formed  of 
perceptive  elements,  each  of  which  is  pleasant  in  itself,  but  there 
must  be  besides  these  elements  a  harmony,  which  relates  or 
unites  them,  which  represents  to  the  mind  a  multiplicity  under 
the  form  of  unity.  We  do  not  know  the  principle  in  virtue  of 
which  perceptive  elements  form  a  unity.  In  the  case  of  tones 
there  is  a  basis  for  the  principle  in  nature  ;  but  we  cannot  tell 
why  the  tones,  the  stimuli  of  which  stand  in  certain  numerical 
relations,  are  beautiful.  And  we  cannot  carry  over  the  laws  of 
harmony  from  the  auditory  into  the  other  systems  of  sensation. 

1  Op.  cit.,  Vol.  Ill,  p.  41. 
*Ibid.,  Vol.  Ill,  p.  42. 


76  MAINE  DE  BIRAN'S  PHILOSOPHY 

Certain  groups  of  qualities  appear  to  us  naturally  beautiful,  other 
groups  do  not.  The  fact  depends  upon  the  nature  of  our  con- 
stitution and  the  natural  relations  of  our  perceptive  faculty  with 
objects.  We  can  discover  the  relations  in  experience,  but  cannot 
explain  them  a  priori.  The  unity,  symmetry,  or  order,  depends 
on  laws  of  perception  and  comparison.  The  combinations  in 
which  these  laws  are  observed  arouse  in  us  the  feeling  of  the 
beautiful.  Nature  does  not  always  satisfy  the  demand  thus  set 
up  ;  the  result  is  an  ideal  of  beauty. 

There  is  in  art  a  certain  amount  of  comparison,  abstraction, 
and  combination  ;  but  the  resemblances,  which  determine  the 
class  of  objects  that  the  understanding  unites  under  the  same 
sign,  differ  essentially  from  the  analogies,  to  which  the  imagina- 
tion refers  in  satisfying  the  needs  of  the  aesthetic  sensibility.  All 
the  qualities  which  tend  to  excite  in  the  mind  the  same  feeling 
have  the  resemblance  which  is  necessary  to  constitute  them  into 
a  single  class.  In  the  beautiful  we  have  a  combination  of  means 
converging  towards  a  single  end. 

Each  art  has  its  specific  and  limited  domain.  Painting  and 
sculpture  reach  the  mind  by  means  of  colors,  forms,  or  positions. 
There  can  be  only  one  time  of  action,  a  single  situation.  Their 
effect  is  consequently  immediate.  Music  influences  the  mind 
without  having  recourse  to  images,  it  sets  up  a  play  of  imagina- 
tion which  may  be  of  indefinite  duration.  As  our  vivid  feelings 
are  developed  in  time,  music  will  always  have  a  higher  value 
than  painting  and  sculpture.  Poetry  also  realizes  its  combina- 
tions in  time. 

We  cannot  reduce  the  principle  of  art  to  imitation  of  nature. 
The  feelings  which  art  arouses  are  inherent  in  human  nature. 
Artists  discover  relations  between  these f  feelings  and  apply  to 
them  combinations  of  elements  modeled  by  the  imagination.  It 
is  true  that  some  elements  are  derived  by  imitation,  but  the 
power  of  the  artist  rests  in  the  beauty  of  expression,  not  in  that 
of  imitation.  Any  form  of  imitation  carries  with  it  the  idea  of 
limit.  Art,  on  the  other  hand,  turns  our  view  toward  the  infinite. 
It  makes  us  feel  what  cannot  be  shown  in  sense  or  represented 
in  imagination.1 

1  Cf.  op.  cit.,  Vol.  II,  pp.  198-199. 


ETHICS   AND    AESTHETICS  77 

The  relation  of  the  absolute  to  the  relative  element  in  art  is 
determined  in  the  same  manner  as  the  relation  of  ideas  of  reflec- 
tion to  general  ideas.  Relative  beauty  corresponds  to  resem- 
blances inherent  in  the  nature  of  the  combined  ideas,  and  conse- 
quently is  variable.  Absolute  beauty  refers  to  the  forms  which 
constitute  the  unity  of  the  combination  of  ideas.  Artistic  good 
taste  is  merely  the  feeling  of  order  and  harmony  which  looks  for 
unity  in  the  variety  of  modifications.  Taste  is  wanting,  where 
the  unity  is  neglected  and  attention  is  directed  only  to  the  variety 
and  detail  of  sensations,  e.  g.y  in  the  Gothic  architecture,  where 
the  grandeur  of  the  whole  is  sacrificed  to  superficial  ornament, 
and  in  painting  where  truth  of  design  is  sacrificed  to  richness  of 
color. 

It  is  possible  to  accustom  ourselves  to  combinations  of  sensible 
qualities,  which  lack  unity,  until  we  derive  pleasure  from  them. 
An  object  which  is  not  beautiful  may  please  by  association  of 
ideas  ;  and  conversely,  an  object  which  is  beautiful  may  not  please 
because  it  is  related  by  the  imagination  to  some  painful  idea.  But 
the  rules  of  beauty,  though  they  may  be  forgotten  or  unknown, 
are  not  the  less  eternal  and  invariable.  Thus  the  external  senses 
and  the  imagination  are  not  the  final  judges  of  real  beauty.  The 
great  artist  by  reflection  and  profound  study  finds  the  sources  of 
beauty  beyond  the  sphere  of  sensation  in  the  fixed  relations  and 
proportions  of  parts  with  each  other  and  with  a  unity.  When 
he  has  seized  the  form  in  the  abstract,  he  individualizes  it  by 
combinations  of  colors  and  figures  which  are  directed  to  sense. 
The  individual  picture,  however,  possesses  a  real  beauty  which 
the  senses  alone  cannot  apprehend.  The  final  product  is  a  unity 
through  the  artist's  creative  imagination,  not  through  the  arti- 
ficial aggregation  of  parts  naturally  dissociated.  The  genius 
can  appreciate  intellectual  beauty,  apart  from  any  sensible  mani- 
festation, in  a  unity  constructed  by  the  scientific  imagination,  e.  g., 
in  the  Copernican  view  of  the  solar  system.  Thus  a  real  unity 
of  idea  lies  at  the  base  of  all  artistic  conceptions.1 
1  Cf.  op.  dt.,  Vol.  II,  pp.  204-206. 


SECTION   XIII. 

RELIGION. 

Before  concluding  our  account  of  Maine  de  Biran's  philosophy, 
we  must  notice  the  characteristics  of  his  later  development,  as 
they  are  embodied  in  the  Anthropologie,  and  in  the  Fondanicnts 
de  la  morale  et  de  la  religion.  As  already  stated,  Naville  in  his 
general  introduction  to  the  works  of  Biran  distinguishes  a  third 
stage  after  the  year  1818.  But  this  distinction,  as  well  as  his 
separation  of  the  first  and  second  periods,  seems  somewhat  arbi- 
trary. It  is  true  that  questions  are  taken  up  in  the  later  work 
which  are  not  treated  in  the  psychology.  There  is  an  increasing 
emphasis  placed  on  man's  wider  relations  to  society  and  the  world. 
But  this  is  not  a  development  of  Biran's  philosophy  to  another 
stage  ;  it  is  rather  a  consideration  of  problems  that  were  neglected 
in  the  psychology.  The  fact  that  his  principle  of  self-activity 
does  not  adequately  explain  the  ethical  and  religious  phases  of 
human  experience  is  not  sufficient  reason  for  considering  Biran's 
later  work  as  a  new  stage.  The  truth  is  that  his  ethics  and 
especially  his  philosophy  of  religion  is  incompletely  and  unsatis- 
factorily worked  out.  In  the  Anthropologie  there  is  a  comparison 
of  the  values  of  Christianity  and  of  Stoicism.  Ethics  as  a  system 
of  human  conduct  is  not  worked  out  in  detail  in  this  place. 
The  treatment  of  religion  is  confined  to  the  third  part  of  the  An- 
thropologie, the  Vie  de  I' esprit,  while  the  first  and  second  parts, 
the  Vie  animale  and  the  Vic  humaine,  are  less  detailed  restate- 
ments of  the  position  presented  in  the  Psychologie. 

After  a  somewhat  minute  examination  of  the  last-named  work, 
it  will  be  unnecessary  to  go  into  an  elaborate  exposition  of  the 
Anthropologie.  The  first  and  second  parts  especially  may  be 
passed  over,  since  we  have  considered  them  in  our  study  of  the 
nature  of  effort.  Consequently  we  shall  limit  the  treatment  to  a 
notice  of  some  of  the  principal  points  of  the  third  part. 

The  essential  feature  of  the  Vie  de  r esprit  is  the  consideration 

78 


RELIGION  79 

of  a  third  form  of  life,  higher  than  the  animal  life  or  the  active 
life  of  man,  that  is,  a  life  "which  is  entirely  spiritual."  l  Man 
stands  intermediate  between  God  and  nature.  In  virtue  of  this 
position  he  possesses  freedom  in  his  activity.  At  a  lower  stage 
the  personality  of  the  soul  is  annihilated  in  animal  life,  at  a  higher 
stage  it  is  lost  in  God.  "  Perhaps  man  holds  in  the  scale  of 
spirits  the  rank  that  the  coral  holds  among  sentient  beings,"  2  but 
man  is  endowed  with  an  activity  by  which  he  can  rise  in  the 
scale.  The  second  life  is  given  to  man  as  a  means  to  the  third, 
in  which  he  is  free  from  the  bondage  of  the  affections  and  pas- 
sions. Christianity  alone  reveals  to  man  this  third  life  above 
human  sensibility,  reason,  or  will.  Stoicism  did  not  get  beyond 
the  second  life  and  exaggerated  the  power  of  the  will  and  of 
reason  over  the  passions  and  affections  of  the  sensitive  life.  But 
there  is  something  more  to  be  explained,  that  is,  "  the  absorption 
of  the  reason  and  the  will  in  a  supreme  force,  an  absorption 
which  without  effort  establishes  a  state  of  perfection  and  happi- 
ness."3 "  This  is  the  mystical  life  of  enthusiasm,  the  highest 
degree  to  which  the  soul  can  attain  in  identifying  itself  with  its 
supreme  object."  4  The  necessity  of  the  second  life,  as  a  means 
to  the  realization  of  the  third,  is  emphasized.  The  absorption  is 
described  as  "calm"  succeeding  "storms,"  and  as  "  repose  of 
the  soul  after  and  not  before  effort."  5  But,  on  the  other  hand,  it 
is  not  absolutely  in  the  power  of  the  soul  to  pass  from  an  inferior 
to  a  superior  stage.  The  individual  "  needs  a  support  beyond 
himself.  Religion  comes  to  his  aid."  6 

The  work  of  the  year  1818,  De  la  morale  et  de  la  religion, 
gives  a  proof  for  the  existence  of  God.  "  The  principle  of  caus- 
ality is  in  us,  and  by  establishing  this  principle  in  its  source  and 
applying  it  with  a  sane  reason,  we  can  rise  from  the  personality 
of  the  self,  which  is  a  relative  and  particular  cause  effecting  bodily 
movement,  to  the  personality  of  God,  which  is  the  absolute  and 

1  CEuvres  inedites,  Vol.  Ill,  p.  517. 
*Ibid.,  Vol.  Ill,  p.  517. 
*Ibid.,  Vol.  Ill,  p.  520. 
*Ibid.,  Vol.  Ill,  p.  521. 
6 Ibid.,  Vol.  Ill,  p.  525. 
«£,  Vol.  Ill,  p.  531. 


8o  MAINE  DE  BIRAN'S  PHILOSOPHY 

universal  cause  of  the  order  of  the  world  and  of  his  own  exis- 
tence." *  Religion,  for  Maine  de  Biran,  depends  upon  morality 
for  its  content  in  the  sense  that  while  morality  is  independent  of 
religion,  the  latter  "  presupposes  a  moral  sentiment  or  relation 
of  sympathy  and  love  between  sentient  feeble  beings  and  the 
supreme  cause  on  which  they  depend  for  their  modifications  and 
even  for  their  existence."  2 

A  review  of  the  main  facts  of  this  section  shows  clearly  that 
the  idea  of  will  is  involved  throughout  the  philosophy  of  religion, 
and  thus  invalidates  a  complete  separation  between  Biran' s 
second  and  third  periods.  The  life  of  activity  is  a  necessary  means 
to  the  religious  life.  The  proof  for  the  existence  of  God  is  based 
directly  on  will.  The  personality  of  God  is  thought  after  the 
analogy  of  the  personality  of  the  self.  And  finally  in  the  last 
quotation,  the  third,  or  religious,  form  of  life  is  explicitly  made 
dependent  upon  morality.  The  element  of  mysticism  which  does 
appear  in  Biran's  latter  writings  is  not  made  a  leading  principle 
of  explanation.  It  is,  however,  an  important  supplement  to  the 
idea  of  activity  in  the  account  of  social  and  religious  phenomena. 

1  Op.  dt.,  Vol.  Ill,  p.  52. 
d.t  Vol.  Ill,  p.  48. 


SECTION    XIV. 

BIRAN'S  RELATION  TO  SUBSEQUENT  THINKERS  :  COUSIN,  COMTE, 
RENOUVIER,  AND  FOUILLEE. 

In  conclusion  it  seems  fitting  to  consider  very  briefly  the  place 
that  Biran  holds  in  the  subsequent  philosophy  of  his  country. 
It  would,  however,  be  impossible  within  the  present  limits  to 
make  an  exhaustive  study  of  his  influence  upon  later  writers. 
Consequently  this  section  will  be  devoted  to  a  consideration  of 
his  relation  to  a  few  of  the  typical  leaders  of  thought  during  the 
last  century.  And  in  this  way  a  general  view  of  his  historical 
position  may  be  gained. 

Maine  de  Biran  is  more  closely  related  to  Cousin  than  to  any 
other  subsequent  philosopher.  Biran's  wrork,  however,  is  only 
one  of  the  many  sources  from  which  the  head  of  the  eclectic 
philosophy  drew  in  constructing  his  system.  And  in  this,  as  in 
other  instances,  Cousin  did  not  borrow  uncritically  from  an  earlier 
thinker ;  but  aimed  to  found  his  work  upon  observation  of  facts 
and  induction.  We  are  very  fortunate  in  regard  to  our  knowl- 
edge of  the  relation  between  Biran  and  Cousin.  The  latter  has 
left  us  a  very  careful  criticism  of  Biran's  doctrine  of  the  direct 
perception  of  the  self  through  experiences  of  will  or  effort. 
Cousin's  criticism  is  all  the  more  valuable  because  there  is  no 
circumstance  which  could  have  induced  him  to  accentuate  the 
differences  between  his  own  position  and  that  of  Biran.  Not 
only  were  the  philosophers  compatriots,  but  the  finest  personal 
relation  subsisted  between  the  elder  and  the  younger  man. 
Further,  the  strenuous  advocacy  of  the  freedom  of  the  will  would 
tend  to  draw  them  closer  together.  Finally,  Cousin  was  the  first: 
to  edit  the  works  of  Biran  and  thus  to  introduce  him  to  the  philo- 
sophical world.  The  consideration  of  these  facts  lends  a  peculiar 
interest  to  the  criticism. 

Cousin  finds  that  Biran  was  right  in  emphasizing  personality 
and  in  showing  the  identity  between  will  and  attention.      More- 
Si 


82  MAINE    DE    BIRAN's    PHILOSOPHY 

0 

over,  the  account  of  the  origin  of  the  idea  of  causality  is  correct. 
But  Biran  was  wrong  in  attempting  to  identify  the  will  with  per- 
sonality. The  greatest  error,  however,  was  in  neglecting  the  dis- 
tinction between  the  idea  of  causality  and  the  principle  of  causal- 
ity. The  former  is  developed  in  experience,  while  the  latter  is  a 
truth  to  which  reason  is  naturally  subject. 

Cousin's  estimate  of  Biran's  theory  of  will  is  most  carefully 
worked  out  in  connection  with  an  examination  of  Locke's  idea  of 
power.  In  this  connection  Cousin  shows  the  intimate  relation 
between  Locke  and  Biran.  As  the  empirical  character  of  Biran's 
philosophy  has  been  one  of  the  main  theses  which  we  have  tried 
to  present,  we  have  a  double  reason  for  looking  at  Cousin's  work  : 
first,  because  it  substantiates  our  general  position,  and  secondly, 
because  it  shows  the  exact  relation  between  Biran  and  eclecticism. 
Cousin's  view  of  Biran's  philosophy  of  will  as  well  as  his  state- 
ment of  its  defects  is  brought  out  clearly  in  the  following  quota- 
tions :  "  The  distinguishing  merit  of  M.  de  Biran  is  in  having 
•established  that  the  will  is  the  constituent  characteristic  of  our 
personality.  He  has  gone  farther  —  too  far,  perhaps.  As  Locke 
confounded  consciousness  and  memory  with  personality  and  iden- 
tity of  self,  M.  de  Biran  has  gone  even  so  far  as  to  confound  the 
will  with  personality  itself.  It  is  certainly  the  eminent  character- 
istic of  it,  so  that  the  idea  of  cause,  which  is  given  in  the  con- 
sciousness of  the  productive  will,  is  for  that  reason  given  in  the 
consciousness  of  our  personality."  l 

"  In  short,  this  cause,  which  is  ourselves,  is  implied  in  every 
fact  of  consciousness.  The  necessary  condition  of  every  phenom- 
enon perceived  by  consciousness  is  that  we  pay  attention  to  it. 
If  we  do  not  bestow  our  attention,  the  phenomenon  may  perhaps 
still  exist,  but  the  consciousness  not  connecting  itself  with  it,  and 
not  taking  knowledge  of  it,  it  is  for  us  a  non-existence.  Atten- 
tion then  is  the  condition  of  every  appreciation  of  consciousness. 
Now  attention,  as  I  have  more  than  once  shown,  is  the  will.  The 
condition,  then,  of  every  phenomenon  of  consciousness,  and  of 
course  of  the  first  phenomenon,  as  of  all  others,  is  the  will,  and 
as  the  will  is  the  causative  power,  it  follows  that  in  the  first  fact 

1  Elements  of  Psychology  (trans.  4th  ed.  by  C.  S.  Henry),  p.  183. 


BIRAN'S  RELATION  TO  SUBSEQUENT  THINKERS  83 

"V 

of  consciousness,  and  in  order  that  this  fact  may  take  place,  there 
must  necessarily  be  the  apperception  of  our  own  causality  in  the 
will,  from  whence  it  follows  again  that  the  idea  of  cause  is  the 
primary  idea  ;  that  the  apperception  of  the  voluntary  cause  which 
we  ourselves  are  is  the  first  of  all  apperceptions,  and  the  condition 
of  all  others. 

"  Such  is  the  theory  to  which  M.  de  Biran  has  raised  that  of 
Locke.  I  adopt  it.  I  believe  that  it  perfectly  accounts  for  the 
idea  of  cause.  But  it  remains  to  inquire  whether  the  idea  of 
cause  .  .  .  suffices  ...  to  explain  the  principle  of  causality. 
For  Locke,  who  treats  of  the  idea  of  cause,  but  never  of  the  prin- 
ciple of  causality,  the  problem  did  not  even  exist.  M.  de  Biran, 
who  scarcely  proposes  it,  resolves  it  by  far  too  rapidly,  and  arrives 
at  once  at  a  result,  the  only  one  permitted  by  Locke's  theory  and 
by  his  own,  but  which  sound  psychology  and  sound  logic  cannot 
accept. 

"  According  to  M.  de  Biran,  after  we  have  derived  the  idea 
of  cause  from  the  sentiment  of  our  own  personal  activity,  in  the 
phenomenon  of  effort,  of  which  we  are  conscious,  we  transfer 
this  idea  outwardly;  we  project  it  into  the  external  world,  by  virtue 
of  an  operation  which,  with  Royer-Collard,  he  has  called  natural 
induction."  !  But  this  view  is  unsatisfactory,  because  "  The  pe- 
culiar character  of  induction  ...  is  ...  in  the  contrast  of  the 
identity  of  the  phenomenon  or  of  the  law,  and  of  the  diversity 
of  the  circumstances  from  which  it  is  first  derived  and  then  trans- 
ferred. If,  then,  the  knowledge  of  external  causes  is  only  an 
induction  from  our  personal  cause,  it  is  in  strictness  our  causal- 
ity, the  voluntary  and  free  cause  which  ourselves  constitute,  that 
should  be  transferred  by  induction  into  the  external  world.  .  .  . 
From  whence  it  follows  that  it  is  our  own  causality  we  should 
be  obliged  to  suppose  wherever  a  phenomenon  begins  to  appear  : 
that  is  to  say,  all  the  causes  which  we  subsequently  conceive  are 
and  can  be  nothing  but  our  own  personality."  2 

This  thought  is  developed  still  further  to  show  the  insuffi- 
ciency of  Biran's  treatment  of  the  principle  of  causality.  "  The 

1  Op.  cit.,  pp.  183-184. 
*Ibid.,  pp.  185-186. 


84  MAINE  DE  BIRAN'S  PHILOSOPHY 

belief  in  the  external  world  and  in  external  causes  is  universal 
and  necessary ;  and  the  fact  which  explains  it  ought  itself  to  be 
universal  and  necessary  ;  if  therefore  our  belief  in  the  world  and 
in  external  causes  resolves  itself  into  the  assimilation  of  these 
causes  to  ours,  this  assimilation  ought  likewise  to  be  universal 
and  necessary.  Now  at  this  point  I  have  recourse  to  psychol- 
ogy. .  .  .  We  all  have  a  perfect  conviction  that  the  world  ex- 
ists, that  there  are  external  causes.  These  causes  we  believe  to 
be  neither  personal,  nor  intentional,  nor  voluntary.  .  .  .  But  if 
this  belief  is  universal  and  necessary,  the  judgment  which  in- 
cludes it  and  gives  it  ought  to  have  a  principle  which  is  itself 
universal  and  necessary  :  and  this  principle  is  nothing  else  than 
the  principle  of  causality.  .  .  .  Take  away  the  principle  of  caus- 
ality, and  whenever  a  phenomenon  appeared  upon  the  theater  of 
consciousness,  of  which  we  were  not  the  cause,  there  would  no 
longer  be  a  ground  for  our  demanding  a  cause  for  the  phenome- 
non. .  .  .  But  on  the  contrary,  assume  the  principle  of  causality 
(as  potentially  existing  in  the  mind),  and  as  soon  as  the 
phenomenon  of  sensation  begins  to  appear  on  the  theater  of  con- 
sciousness, at  the  same  instant  the  principle  of  causality  (actu- 
ally unfolded  and  put  in  exercise  by  the  occasion  of  the  phe- 
nomenon), marks  it  with  this  character  that  it  cannot  but  have 
a  cause.  Now  as  consciousness  attests  that  this  cause  is  not 
ourselves,  and  yet  it  remains  not  less  certain  that  it  must  have  a 
cause,  it  follows  that  there  is  a  cause  other  than  ourselves,  and 
which  is  neither  personal  nor  voluntary,  and  yet  it  is  a  cause, 
that  is  to  say,  a  cause  simply  efficient."  ' 

Cousin  finds  a  certain  partial  truth  in  Biran's  account  of  will 
but  regards  that  account  as  inadequate.  He  says  :  "I  admit,  I 
am  decidedly  of  the  opinion  that  the  consciousness  of  our  own 
proper  causality  precedes  any  conception  of  the  principle  of 
causality,  and  of  course  precedes  any  application  of  that  princi- 
ple, any  knowledge  of  external  causality."  2  Genetically  the 
knowledge  of  causality  is  discovered  by  an  act  of  will.  But  the 
principle  of  causality  is  made  logically  prior  to  the  particular 

1  Of.  dt.,  pp.  187-189. 

2  Ibid.,  p.  190. 


BIRAN'S  RELATION  TO  SUBSEQUENT  THINKERS  85 

example  of  the  principle  in  voluntary  activity.  Cousin  works 
out  the  distinction  as  follows  :  "  The  process  by  which  in  the 
depths  of  the  mind  the  passage  is  made  from  the  primary  fact  of 
consciousness  to  the  ulterior  fact  of  the  conception  of  the  prin- 
ciple is  this.  I  wish  to  move  my  arm  and  I  move  it.  ...  This 
fact,  when  analyzed,  gives  three  elements  :  ( I )  Consciousness  of  a 
volition  which  is  my  own,  which  is  personal ;  (2)  a  motion  pro- 
duced ;  (3)  and  finally,  a  reference  of  this  motion  to  my  will 
...  a  relation  of  production,  of  causation  ;  a  relation  too,  which 
I  no  more  call  in  question,  than  I  do  either  of  the  other  two 
terms,  and  without  which  the  other  two  terms  are  not  given  ;  so 
that  the  three  terms  are  given  in  one  single  and  indivisible  fact, 
which  fact  is  the  consciousness  of  my  personal  causality.  .  .  . 

"  This  fact  .  .  .  is  characterized  by  being  particular,  individual, 
determinate.  .  .  .  Again,  it  is  characteristic  of  everything  par- 
ticular and  determinate,  to  be  susceptible  of  the  degrees  of  more 
or  less.  I  myself,  a  voluntary  cause,  have  at  such  a  moment 
more  or  less  energy,  which  makes  the  motion  produced  by  me 
have  more  or  less  force.  But  does  the  feeblest  motion  pertain 
any  less  to  me  than  the  most  energetic  ?  Is  there  between  the 
the  cause,  myself,  and  the  effect,  motion,  a  less  relation  in  the 
one  case  than  in  the  other  ?  Not  at  all,  the  two  terms  may 
vary,  and  do  vary  perpetually  in  intensity,  but  the  relation  does 
not  vary.  Still  further,  the  two  terms  .  .  .  may  even  not  exist 
at  all.  .  .  .  But  the  relation  between  these  two  determinate,  vari- 
able, and  contingent  terms,  is  neither  variable  nor  contingent.  It  is 
universal  and  necessary.  The  moment  the  consciousness  seizes 
these  two  terms,  the  reason  seizes  their  relation,  and  by  an  im- 
mediate abstraction  which  needs  not  the  support  of  a  great  num- 
ber of  similar  facts,  it  disengages  the  invariable  and  necessary 
element  of  the  fact  from  its  variable  and  contingent  elements. 
.  .  .  Reason,  then,  is  subject  to  this  truth,  it  is  under  an  impos- 
sibility of  not  supposing  a  cause,  whenever  the  senses  or  the 
consciousness  reveal  any  motion  or  phenomenon.  Now  this  im- 
possibility, to  which  the  reason  is  subjected,  of  not  supposing  a 
cause  for  every  phenomenon,  ...  is  what  we  call  the  principle 
of  causality.  .  .  .  Now  it  is  with  the  principle  of  causality  as 


86  MAINE  DE  BIRAN'S  PHILOSOPHY 

with  other  principles ;  never  would  the  human  mind  have  con- 
ceived it  in  its  universality  and  necessity,  if  at  first  there  had  not 
been  given  us  a  particular  fact  of  causation  ;  and  this  primitive 
and  particular  fact  is  that  of  our  own  proper  and  personal  caus- 
ality, manifested  to  the  consciousness  in  an  effort,  in  a  voluntary' 
act.  But  this  does  not  suffice  of  itself  wholly  to  explain  the 
knowledge  of  external  causes,  because  we  should  have  to  regard 
external  causes  as  only  an  induction  from  our  own  causality." 

The  extended  quotations  already  given  and  the  importance  of 
the  subject  alike  require  that  we  should  look  at  the  passage  in 
which  Cousin  sums  up  his  criticism  of  Biran.  It  is  as  follows  : 
"  Gifted  with  extraordinary  psychological  insight,  M.  de  Biran 
penetrated  so  far  into  the  intimacy  of  the  fact  of  consciousness 
by  which  the  first  idea  of  cause  is  given,  that  he  scarcely  disen- 
gaged himself  from  that  fact  and  that  idea,  and  neglected  too 
much  the  principle  of  causality  ;  thus  confounding,  as  Locke 
has  done,  the  antecedent  of  a  principle  with  the  principle  itself ; 
or  when  he  attempted  to  explain  the  principle  of  causality,  he 
explained  it  by  a  natural  induction  which  transfers  to  the  external 
world  consciousness,  the  will  and  all  the  peculiar  attributes  of 
his  model ;  confounding  in  this  way  a  particular,  transient,  and 
erroneous  application  of  the  principle  of  causality,  with  the  prin- 
ciple in  itself.  .  .  .  The  theory  of  M.  de  Biran  is  the  develop- 
ment of  the  theory  of  Locke.  It  reproduces  that  theory  with 
more  extent  and  profoundness,  and  exhausts  at  once  both  its 
merits  and  its  defects."  * 

While  the  question  of  the  relation  of  Cousin  to  Biran  is  logic- 
ally distinct  from  the  question  concerning  Cousin's  estimate  of 
his  debt  to  his  predecessor,  I  believe  they  are  practically  coinci- 
dent. If  this  is  correct,  in  the  view  that  the  idea  of  causality 
becomes  explicit  in  the  fact  of  volition,  that  is,  that  it  is  genetic- 
ally (though  not  logically)  derived  from  the  act  of  will,  we  have 
the  important  thought  which  Cousin  accepted  from  Biran's  theory 
of  will.  Taking  causality  as  a  typical  example,  it  may  be  said 
that  while  Biran  derives  the  intellectual  categories  from  a  psy- 

1  Op.  cit.,  pp.  190-194. 

2  Ibid.,  p.  197. 


BIRAN'S  RELATION  TO  SUBSEQUENT  THINKERS  87 

chological  fact,  Cousin  makes  them  universal  laws  of  reason.  A 
general  view  of  Cousin's  treatment  of  causality  suggests  the  con- 
clusion that  Biran's  influence  on  early  eclecticism  has  been  over- 
emphasized. 

Passing  from  the  system  which  stands  in  closest  relation  to 
Biran's  work  to  that  which  is  most  antithetical,  positivism,  we 
can  dismiss  our  subject  much  more  briefly.  We  have  here  no 
extended  criticism  for  examination,  and  need  only  note  the 
divergence  in  method  and  in  •general  attitude  to  philosophical 
questions.  We  have,  then,  not  so  much  to  trace  a  relation  as  to 
show  the  absence  of  any  intimate  relation  between  Biran  and 
Comte.  Biran,  we  have  seen,  was  individualistic  in  attitude  and 
pursued  a  psychological  method.  Comte,  on  the  other  hand, 
was  socialistic  in  attitude  and  employed  a  method  which  was  de- 
rived from  and  suited  to  include  the  other  sciences,  but  which  left 
no  place  for  psychology  in  Biran's  sense  of  that  term.  It  is  un- 
necessary to  carry  the  comparison  further.  The  contrasted  posi- 
tions will  be  shown  by  a  notice  of  Comte's  views  on  some  ques- 
tions which  we  have  seen  were  important  for  Biran. 

With  Comte  any  attempt  to  seek  for  a  metaphysical  basis  from 
which  the  postulates  of  the  various  sciences  could  be  deduced 
marked  a  return  to  a  more  primitive  method  of  thought.  He 
could  consequently  have  no  sympathy  with  a  system  like  that  of 
Biran  which  was  founded  on  an  ultimate  fact  discovered  in  ex- 
perience. For  positivism  science  is  its  own  end ;  and  any  law 
of  the  relation  of  the  sciences  must  be  discovered  in  the  history 
of  scientific  development  rather  than  in  some  isolated  fact. 
Starting  with  this  view  of  "  the  powerlessness  of  metaphysical 
methods  for  the  study  of  moral  and  intellectual  phenomena," 
Comte  notes  the  general  "absurdity  of  the  supposition  of  a  man 
seeing  himself  think."  He  then  finds  further  difficulties  in  the 
method  of  "  interior  observation."  "  It  is  at  once  evident  that  no 
function  can  be  studied  but  with  relation  to  the  organ  that  ful- 
fils it,  or  to  the  phenomena  of  its  fulfilment :  and  in  the  second 
place,  that  the  affective  functions,  and  yet  more  the  intellectual, 
exhibit  in  the  latter  respect  this  particular  characteristic  —  that 
they  cannot  be  observed  during  their  operation,  but  only  in  their 


88  MAINE  DE  BIRAN'S  PHILOSOPHY 

results,  more  or  less  immediate  and  more  or  less  durable."  The 
psychological  method  does  not  study  the  organic  conditions  nor 
the  intellectual  acts,  and  thus  by  neglecting  "  both  the  agent  and 
the  act,"  it  is  lost  in  "  an  unintelligible  conflict  of  words,  in  which 
merely  nominal  entities  are  substituted  for  real  phenomena." 
We  have  seen  that  Biran  also  often  speaks  against  the  substitu- 
tion of  abstractions  for  realities,  and  it  is  necessary  to  see  clearly 
what  is  meant.  Biran's  ultimate  reality,  the  self  discovered  in 
effort,  is  for  Comte  merely  a  "  nominal  entity,"  while  agent  is 
made  equivalent  to  "organic  condition." 

Comte  objects  further  to  the  "  radical  separation  which  it  was 
thought  necessary  to  make  between  brutes  and  man  "  and  "  the 
necessity  that  the  metaphysicians  found  themselves  under,  of 
preserving  the  unity  of  what  they  call  the  I,  that  it  might  corre- 
spond with  the  unity  of  the  soul."  For  "it  is  probable  that 
among  the  superior  animals  the  sense  of  personality  is  still  more 
marked  than  in  man,  on  account  of  their  more  isolated  life."  * 

It  might  seem  to  the  casual  observer  that  there  is  one  resem- 
blance between  the  systems,  in  the  fact  that  positivism  makes  the 
affective,  prior  to  the  intellectual,  life.  But  even  this  point  of 
similarity  is  not  valid,  because  Biran  sharply  distinguishes  will 
and  desire.  We  may  say  then  that  Biran  had  no  influence  on 
positivism. 

Having  considered  Maine  de  Biran's  relation  to  eclecticism 
and  to  positivism,  we  shall  conclude  by  noting  the  estimate  in 
which  he  is  held  by  contemporary  writers.  First,  let  us  see  how 
he  fits  into  Renouvier's  historical  scheme.  The  neo-critic  thinks 
that  both  eclecticism  and  positivism  were  inadaquate  reactions 
against  the  philosophy  of  the  eighteenth  century.  The  former 
sought  to  rediscover  the  "  lofty  philosophical  traditions  "  of  the 
seventeenth  century,  the  latter  aimed  at  their  "  total  abandonment 
confident  of  replacing  them  by  a  more  certain  method."  But 
neither  was  alive  to  "  the  necessity  of  studying  the  nature  of  the 
principles  of  knowledge."2 

Biran  was  a  true  child  of  his  time.     Although  he  passed  with 

1  Martineau,  Comte' s  Positive  Philosophy,  Vol.  I,  pp.  331,  334. 

2  Histoire  et  solution  des  problemes  metaphysiques,  pp.  415-417. 


BIRAN'S  RELATION  TO  SUBSEQUENT  THINKERS  89 

the  eclectics  as  the  discoverer  of  Leibnitz,  he  really  emphasized 
only  the  principle  of  activity,  while  he  did  not  even  understand 
the  doctrine  of  p  reestablished  harmony.1  Still  retaining  his 
realistic  position,  he  made  the  will  a  force  of  our  own  "  of  which 
we  have  at  the  same  time  thought  and  external  perception  with 
the  certitude  of  its  action,  as  a  cause  producing  organic  move- 
ment." ~ 

It  is  easy  to  see  how  slight  Biran's  influence  has  been  on  neo- 
criticism.  Both  Biran  and  Renouvier  are  strenuous  advocates 
of  free  will.  But  for  the  former  it  is  a  fact  given  in  experience, 
which  we  cannot  doubt  any  more  than  we  can  doubt  the  existence 
of  the  self.  Renouvier,  on  the  other  hand,  "  rests  the  thesis  of 
free  will,  not  with  the  eclectics  on  the  vain  affirmation  of  an  inner 
experience  which  we  have  of  it,  a  confusion  between  the  real 
experience  of  our  feeling  on  this  point  and  the  experience  which 
it  is  necessary  we  should  have  and  which  we  never  do  have  of  the 
relation  of  this  feeling  with  the  truth,"  but  on  a  psychological 
analysis  of  the  act  of  deliberation,  on  the  evident  fallacy  in 
employing  the  principle  of  contradiction  to  prove  that  all  future 
events  are  determined,  and  on  a  study  of  the  concept  of  cause.3 
We  are  forced  to  conclude  that  Biran  had  very  little  direct 
influence  on  the  work  of  Renouvier. 

We  will  consider  one  more  estimate  of  Biran,  made  by  another 
contemporary  writer  on  will  philosophy.  Fouillee  speaks  of  Biran 
as  the  one  who  reestablished  dynamism  in  man  and  nature  "but 
under  the  doubtful  form  of  motor  force  "  and  who  "  had  only  a 
very  mystical  idea  "  of  "  the  sphere  of  ideal  freedom."  He  says  : 
"  much  of  French  philosophy  agrees  with  Maine  de  Biran  and 
with  German  philosophy  in  supposing  that  beyond  logical  mech- 
anism and  sensible  reality  there  is  a  region  of  freedom  which  is 
at  the  same  time  a  region  of  love  understood  in  the  true  sense."  4 

It  is  clear,  however,  that  Fouillee  does  not  accept  the  theory 
of  a  "  true  motor  force,"  as  Biran  employed  the  term,  for  he 
criticises  an  error  of  the  "partisans  of  the  objectivity  of  the  self." 
1  Cf.  op.  dt.,  p.  414. 

*Ibid.,  pp.  456-457. 

a  Cf.  ibid,  pp.  437-438. 

4  La  liberte  et  le  determinisme,  p.  341. 


gO  MAINE    DE    BIRAN  S    PHILOSOPHY 

They  confuse  the  two  meanings  of  the  "idea  of  the  self"  which 
can  stand  for  either  "the  reflective  idea  of  the  self"  which  "is 
only  a  distinct  manifestation  of  our  thought,  and  contrasted  with 
our  existence  "  or  "  the  immediate  consciousness  of  being,  of  sen- 
sation, and  of  thought."  l  Fouillee  finds  that  "  the  most  that  can 
be  accorded  to  man,  is  simply  a  vague  consciousness  of  force  or 
universal  will  which  acts  in  us  as  in  others,  this  pretended  con- 
sciousness of  the  universal  is  without  doubt  only  a  pure  idea." 
"  If  we  thus  have  consciousness  of  any  freedom,  it  is  not  of  our 
individual  freedom,  but  of  freedom  of  absolute  unity  superior  to 
our  own  individuality.  In  this  case  I  am  free  precisely  where  I 
am  no  longer  self.  While  as  a  self,  as  a  being  distinct  and  deter- 
minate, I  am  determined  both  in  my  action  and  in  my  existence, 
I  am  caught  in  the  net  of  universal  determinism." 

When  we  compare  this  quotation  with  Biran's  idea  of  freedom, 
we  cannot  claim  that  Fouillee  with  his  doctrine  of  the  "  force  of 
the  idea  of  freedom  "  as  a  means  of  reconciliation  between  liberty 
and  determinism,  really  owes  any  considerable  debt  to  the  earlier 
philosopher. 

1  Op.  at.,  p.  77. 

2  Ibid.,  pp.  90-91. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY. 
WORKS  OF  MAINE  DE  BIRAN. 

Nouvelle   considerations  sur  les  rapports   du  physique  et  du   morale  de 
I'  homme,    1834.      CEuvres  philosophiques,    1841.      Publiees  par.  V. 
COUSIN. 
Pcnsees,  1857,  3d  ed.,  1877.      CEuvres  inedites,   3  vols.,    1859.*     Publiees 

•    par  E.  NAVILLE. 

Nouvelles  ceuvres  inedites,  1887.*  Lettres  inedites  de  Maine  de  Biran  a 
Andre-Marie  Ampere  in  the  Revue  de  Metaphysique  et  de  Morale 
for  1893.  Publiees  par  A.  BERTRAND. 

Opinion  de  M.  Maine  de  Biran,  Depute  de  la  Dordogne  sur  la 
proposition  de  M.  de  Serre,  in  the  Moniteur  of  February  14,  1818. 

WORKS  CONCERNING  MAINE  DE  BIRAN. 

J.  Simon.     Maine  de  Biran,  in  the  Revue  des  deux  mondes,  Nov.,  1841. 
C.  A.  Sainte-Beuve.     Maine  de  Biran,  in   Causeries  du  lundi,  Vol.  XIII, 

304-323.      1857. 

A.  Nicolas.     Etude  sur  Maine  de  Biran,  1858. 
Henri  Baudrillart.     Maine  de  Biran  ih  Publicistes  modernes,  pp.  175-189, 

1863. 

0.  Merten.     Etude  critique  sur  Maine  de  Biran,  1865. 
Elie  de  Biran.     Etude  sur  les  ceuvres  philosophiques  de  Maine  de  Biran, 

1868.* 
Ad.  Franck.     Maine  de  Biran,   in  Moralistes  et  philosophes,  pp.  273-289, 

2d  ed.,  1874. 

Gerard.     La  philosophie  de  Maine  de  Biran,  1876.* 
Paul  Janet.      Un  philosophe  spiritualiste  au  XIXe  siecle  in  Les  mattres  de  la 

pensee  moderne,  1883. 

Ferraz.     Maine  de  Biran  in  Spiritualisme  et  liberalisme,  2d  ed. ,  1887. 
H.  Taine.     Maine  de  Biran  in  Les  philosophes  classiques  du  XIXe  siecle  en 

France,  pp.  48-78,  6th  ed.,  1888. 

Picavet.     Philosophie  de  Biran  de  ran  IX a  V 'an  XI.       (Orleans),  1888.* 
Caro.     Histoire  d'une  ante  sincere  in  Melanges  et  portraits,  1888. 
A.  Bertrand.     La  psychologic  de  V effort,  1889.* 
L.  G.  Konig.     Der  fransosische  Kant  in  Philosophise  he  Monatshefte,  Vol. 

XXV,  1889. 

1  In  the  third  volume  Debrit  gives  a  valuable  catalogue  of  Biran' s  writings. 
The  works  marked  with  asterisk  (*),  I  have,   unfortunately,  not  had  an  oppor- 
tunity to  consult. 

91 


92  MAINE    DE    BIRAN*S    PHILOSOPHY 

C.  Favre.     Essai  sur  Maine  de  Biran'  1889. 

E.  Rostan.     La  religion  de  Maine  de  Biran,  1890.* 
L.  Marillier.     Maine  de  Biran,  1893.* 

A.  Lang.     Maine  de  Biran  und  die  neuere  Philosophie,  1901. 
A.  Ku  htm  arm.     Maine  de  Biran,  1901. 

COMPARE  ALSO  THE  FOLLOWING  : 

Damiron.     Essai  sur  r  histoire  de  la  philosophic  en  France  au  XIXe  siecle, 
3d  ed.,  1834. 

F.  Ravaisson.     Philosophie    contemporaine   in    Revue    des    deux    mondes 

November,  1840. 

F.  Ravaisson.     La  philosophie  en  France  au  XIXe  siecle,    1867,  3d  ed., 

1889. 

A.  Lemoine.     I'  A  me  et  le  corps,  1852.* 
Paul  Janet.     Le  spiritiialisme  francais  au  XIXe  siecle  in  Revue  des  deux 

mondes,  May,  1868. 

C.  Adam.     La  philosophie  en  France  {premiere  moitie  du  XIXe  siecle),  1894. 
Levy-Bruhl.     History  of  Modern  Philosophy  in  France,  1899. 

THE    FOLLOWING    AUTHORS     HAVE    ALSO    BEEN     REFERRED    TO    IN    THIS 
MONOGRAPH. 

Beaulavon.     Article  Sensualisme  in  La  grande  encyclopedic . 

Condillac.      Traite  des  sensations  (Ch.  Houel,  Paris,  1798). 

V.  Cousin.     History  of  Modern  Philosophy  (trans,  by  O.  W.  Wight). 

V.  Cousin.     Elements  of  Psychology  (trans,  by  C.  S.  Henry). 

Fouillee.     La  liberte  et  le  determinisme , 

Hamilton.     Lectures. 

Hume.      Treatise  of  Human  Nature  (Selby-Bigge). 

Hume.     Enquiries  (Selby-Bigge). 

Kant.      Critique  of  Pure  Reason  (trans,  by  Max  Miiller). 

Locke.     Essay  Concerning  Human  Understanding. 

Martineau.      Compte 's  Positive  Philosophy. 

Reid.      Collected  Writings  (8th  ed.  by  Hamilton,  1880). 

Renouvier.     Histoire  et  solution  des  problemes  Metaphysiques. 

Seth.     Scottish  Philosophy. 

G.  Tarde.     Inter-psychology  in  International  Quarterly,  Vol.  VII,  No.  i. 


INDEX. 


Ancillon,  15,  n. 
Beaulavon,  6 
Bertrand,  26 

Cabanis,  3,  12 

Causality,  18,  25,  29,  30,  32-35,  38,  39, 
44,  49,  53,  55,  57,  61,  66,  67,  79, 
80,  82-86 

efficient  and  physical,  67 
psychical,  35 
Comte,  87 
Condillac,  3,  4,  6,  14,   15,  28,  29,  39, 

60,  68,  71 

definition  of  will,  10 

statute  9,  10,  69,  70 

Cousin,  i,  6,  37,  81-87 

Deduction,  65,  66 
Descartes,  18,  28,  29,  73 
Desire,  9,  10,  14,  17,  34 
and  will,  36,  88 

Emotions,  72-73 

classification  of,  49 

Favre,  3 
Fouillee,  89-90 

Freedom,  3,  8,  36,  37,  67,  73,  79,  81, 
89,  90 

Gerando,  15,  n. 

God's  existence,  proof  of,  79-80 

Habituation,  34,  47,  48,  52,  53,  62 

Hamilton,  38-39 

Human  vs.  merely  sentient  life,  40-42, 

44,  46,  88 
Hume,  18,  21,  33,  34,  35,  62,  63 

Idealogy,  12 

Ideas  of  reflection  vs.  logical  abstractions, 

37-38,  56-57,  62-65,  77 
Imitation,  not  the  principle  of  art,  76 
Induction,  62,  83 

Kant,  i,  15,  18 
Kb'nig,  17 
Kiihtmaun,  15,  n.,  39 


Lang,  35 

Language,  61,  62,  64,  65 
Laromiguiere,  2 
Leibnitz,  2,  28 
Levy  Bruhl,  17 
Localization  in  space,  55 
Locke,  6-9,  n,  14,  18,  36,  38,  39,  48, 
60,  71,  82,  83,  86 

Max  Miiller,  16,  n. 

Memory,  45,  48,  49,  56,  61,  62,  66,  70, 

82 

Merten,  4 
Movement,  26,  34,  50,  60,  70,  85 

classification  of,  25 
Mysticism,  6,  79-80,  89 

Napoleon,  Biran's  relation  to,  I 
Waville,  2,  5,  18,  78 
Picavet,  6 

Pleasantnessjand'unpleasantness,  9,    14, 
17,  41,  69^  87,  88 

sesthetical  significance  of,  75,  77 

cause  of,  44 

ethical  import  of,  73,  74 

no  memory  of,  61 
Reason,  62-68,  85 
Reid,  1 8-2 1 
Renouvier,  88-89 
Royer-Collard,  83 

Sciences,  32,  37,  38,  46,  62,  66,  67,  87 
Seth,  1 8 

Skepticism,  6,  18,  21,  35 
Stewart,  18 
Stoicism,  idea  of  world  soul  in,  54 

value  of,  78,  79 
Taine,  57,  n. 
Tarde,  5 
Time,  16,  36 
Touch,  sense  of,  14,  32,  45,  52,  55,  56, 

7«,  75 

in  Condillac' s  system,  10,  n,  70 
de  Tracy,  12 


93 


\ 


